Appold Market Watch - Week ending 3 October 2025

Market Update & Industry News - Week ending 3 October 2025

🔷 U.S.-based CME Group, one of the world’s largest operators of options and futures exchanges, announced plans to launch around-the-clock digital asset futures and options trading in early 2026, pending regulatory approval. This development will enable traders to access CME’s digital asset products at any time and day, as opposed to only on weekdays and during business hours.

Appold view: CME’s move signals the steady institutionalisation of digital assets, blurring traditional market boundaries and bringing digital asset market accessibility in line with global FX and commodities.

🔷 BlackRock’s IBIT Bitcoin ETF has surpassed Coinbase-owned Deribit to become the largest venue for Bitcoin options trading. IBIT now leads BTC options with $38 billion in open interest, compared to Deribit's $32 billion. 

Appold view: Despite Bitcoin ETFs, including IBIT, experiencing outflows in September, this milestone suggests not only IBIT’s resilience but also the growing dominance of ETFs over digital asset-native derivatives.

🔷 Laser Digital, a subsidiary of Japan's largest investment bank Nomura, is reportedly planning to expand its digital asset offering in Japan and is in talks with the country’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) as it prepares to apply for a digital asset trading license to offer services to institutional clients.

Appold view: With Japan’s institutional market for digital assets maturing, a license from the FSA would lend credibility and regulatory clarity to Laser Digital, enabling it to capture institutional flows in a market that has been cautious but is steadily opening up.

🔷 The UK’s Metropolitan Police have reportedly made the single largest seizure of digital assets in the world. Worth an estimated £5.5 billion, police seized 61,000 Bitcoin from Chinese national Zhimin Qian. Qian had orchestrated a large-scale fraud in China with over 128,000 victims between 2014 and 2017 and stored the illegally obtained funds in Bitcoin before fleeing to the UK.

Appold view: This case serves as a positive demonstration of law enforcement's growing resolve to tackle individual criminality involving digital assets. More interesting, however, is the debate reportedly to be ongoing as to whether the UK should compensate Qian’s victims to the value of their original investments, or to the current value of the Bitcoin in which it has been stored.

#Marketwatch #Blockchain #Investments