The under-the-radar angle headline. Flow-anchored. "The $43B detail in IBIT's options comeback"

IBIT was never supposed to lose Monday and Wednesday weekly expiries for a quarter. CoinGecko data shows it did anyway, because the fund's June assets, around $43.23 billion, fell on the wrong side of MIAX's old $50 billion gate. The exchange's new Tier 2 test, effective Aug. 18, 2026, cut that threshold in half, and BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust is back on the calendar with expirations on Aug. 19, 24, 26 and 31. The under-reported part of this story is the mechanism behind the removal, not the return. MIAX dropped IBIT from its third-quarter list on July 1, 2026, after the ETF held a slot through the first two quarters. Neither the exchange's listing alert nor the SEC notice names which old condition IBIT failed. per CoinGecko, the balance sheet implies it: BlackRock's historical fund data put IBIT net assets at about $43.23 billion on June 30, under the former $50 billion gate but comfortably above the new $25 billion floor.

The June AUM that tripped the old gate

MIAX's Pearl rule notice, filed Aug. 13, splits qualifying ETFs into two tiers. Figures from the desk show tier 1 keeps the legacy tests, above $50 billion in AUM and 10 million monthly options sides, and adds Tuesday and Thursday short-dated expiries. CoinGecko data shows tier 2 halves both gates to $25 billion and 5 million sides but caps the reward at Monday and Wednesday weeklies

What Tuesday and Thursday still cost

The structural read for desks is narrower than the headline. Tier 2 restores two Mondays and two Wednesdays out beyond the current week, P.M.-settled, and MIAX skips any week where the expiry would collide with a standard, monthly or quarterly expiration. per CoinGecko, iBIT still does not carry Tuesday or Thursday weeklies until it clears the $50 billion / 10 million Tier 1 bar. That gap matters for how bitcoin vol trades. Monday and Wednesday expiries give market makers and option buyers a steadier cadence for pinning and gamma rolls, but the venue-specific change is not a market-wide shift in IBIT options. Neither MIAX nor any exchange has said how the restored dates will move volume or bitcoin volatility. Figures from the desk show CoinGecko has BTC at $77,870, down 3.11% in 24 hours with 24-hour volume near $36.3 billion.

The 60-day window to Sept. 17

The rule took effect immediately on filing, but that speed cuts both ways. The SEC waived the usual 30-day delay only to retain the authority to suspend the change within 60 days, a review window that runs into mid-October. Comments on the Federal Register notice close Sept. 17, 2026, giving desks a concrete date to watch rather than an open-ended wait. Nothing in the filing guarantees the expiries stick. A suspension in the 60-day window, or a comment-period pushback, would put IBIT back to a single weekly expiry cadence. For now the watchpoint is procedural: whether the SEC lets the Tier 2 test stand through the Sept. 17 comment deadline and the 60-day review that follows it.