BlackRock's bitcoin ETF options just surpassed Deribit — the center of gravity has shifted

BlackRock’s IBIT options open interest topped Deribit on Friday, making the regulated U.S. product the single largest bitcoin derivatives book in the world. For years, the price of bitcoin was set on offshore exchanges with no KYC, no circuit breakers, and no oversight. Now the dominant derivatives market is a BlackRock product sitting inside U.S. retirement accounts. While oil markets wrestle with Hormuz-driven chaos and Brent sits above $105, Wall Street has quietly taken the steering wheel of the bitcoin market. The decentralization purists lost this round. But the institutionalization thesis just got its clearest proof point yet.