Traders will soon be able to bet on whether Coinbase, Robinhood and Marathon will hit their targets

While traders spent this week watching bitcoin BTC$82,701.31 gyrate above $80,000 amid key U.S. inflation data, a decision from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission got far less attention.

The (SEC) approved the listing of binary options tied to key performance indicators (KPIs) of 23 U.S. publicly traded companies. The metrics include trading volume at crypto exchange Coinbase Global (COIN), customer count and revenue at Robinhood Markets (HOOD), and bitcoin production at mining firm MARA Holdings (MARA).

“For crypto, this creates a new way to trade crypto-linked company performance beyond betting directly on BTC’s price,” Eleanor Terrett, the host of Crypto America, said on X. “The SEC approved this specific securities-options structure, while leaving room for differently structured contracts to fall under CFTC jurisdiction.”

A binary option is the simplest options contract, allowing traders to bet on a simple yes-or-no question, such as whether Coinbase’s trading volume will exceed a set number by a specific date.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins approved a rule change filed by Cboe Global Markets, according to a statement dated Oct. 13. The contracts are cash-settled and European-style, meaning they can only be exercised at expiration. They will settle on figures in companies’ SEC filings, not numbers in earnings presentations.

Cboe plans to list the contracts this month, and Robinhood is expected to be the first brokerage to offer them to retail investors. Trading can’t begin until Cboe Clear U.S., the clearing house, gets provisional registration, and a separate application is pending.

Atkins said the approval does not touch similar contracts overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), such as those on prediction market platform Kalshi. He said agency turf fights have hindered innovation for decades, and the approval “reflects a new spirit of harmony, innovation, and investor choice.”

As for the market, analysts remain confident of bullish prospects after bitcoin’s BTC$82,701.31 successful defense of its 50-day simple moving average support this week. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today . For a comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

• MSCI approves rules that could eject Strategy, Metaplanet from equity indexes (CoinDesk): MSCI, one of the world’s biggest stock index providers, finalized that could remove shares of leading bitcoin holding companies Strategy and Metaplanet from its global equity indexes.
• An OpenAI agent ran out of Ethereum funds, and took from a wallet it did not own (CoinDesk): An OpenAI research model stuck without funds on an Ethereum test network went looking for someone else’s wallet, found one through recovery phrases that were already public, and spent from it to finish a coding assignment. The model needed no hacking skills to get in.
• XRP has failed to make holders rich like bitcoin and ether. Here’s why. (CoinDesk): XRP is still trading well below its 2017 cycle high, while most other major cryptocurrencies have climbed far above theirs. Analysts point to XRP’s supply and weaker demand.
• European stocks rise as markets stabilize, dollar set for weekly loss (Reuters): European stock markets picked up in early trading on Friday as market sentiment ​showed signs of recovery after a sharp drop in tech stocks the day before, while the dollar weakened and was ‌set for a weekly loss.

The chart shows bitcoin’s daily price swings in candlestick format since late July. Overlaid on the chart is the 50-day simple moving average of the price.

While the rally has stalled since Sept. 21, pullbacks have been moderate, with the 50-day moving average providing support. Prices briefly fell below that level on Thursday before recovering.

The behavior has some analysts positioning for further upside in the cryptocurrency.