The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a Cboe rule change allowing binary options tied directly to corporate performance metrics, including indicators reported by Coinbase, Robinhood and Bitcoin miner MARA. The new structure lets traders take positions on whether a company’s reported KPI reaches a predetermined threshold rather than simply betting on its share price.
Under SEC Release No. 34-106659, approved on October 13, Cboe may list cash-settled, European-style binary options on specified metrics from 23 issuers. Each contract produces an all-or-nothing settlement based on a KPI disclosed in an issuer’s SEC-filed earnings documentation, such as a Form 10-Q, 10-K or 8-K.
The payout does not depend on how far the KPI exceeds or misses its strike. A call pays its fixed settlement amount when the reported metric equals or exceeds the threshold, while a put pays when the metric falls below it. Cboe’s framework converts individual operating results into standardized securities options with defined expirations and exercise levels.
Coinbase, Robinhood and MARA Get Crypto-Linked KPI Contracts
Coinbase is among the issuers covered by the initial framework. Eligible metrics include total revenue, transaction revenue, subscription and services revenue and total trading volume. That means a contract could isolate Coinbase’s underlying trading activity without requiring a directional position on COIN shares themselves.
Robinhood’s approved metrics include total net revenue, funded customers, average revenue per user and Robinhood Gold subscribers. MARA’s list goes deeper into Bitcoin-specific operations, including BTC produced, total Bitcoin holdings, Bitcoin purchased, energized hashrate and blocks won. For crypto-linked companies, the contracts create direct exposure to operational metrics that can otherwise be embedded inside broader equity valuations.
Settlement will rely on the figures contained in the issuer’s earnings-related filing submitted to the SEC, not simply an earlier earnings press release. Even when preliminary disclosures and formal filings are nearly identical, the SEC-filed KPI becomes the definitive settlement reference under the Cboe rules.
The approval extends a broader expansion of regulated equity-linked derivatives involving crypto-market firms. Coinbase, Kalshi and Bitnomial have already completed SEC notice-registration steps for security futures, while the same firms have pursued single-stock perpetual futures for U.S. markets. Those products operate under different regulatory structures, and venue registration does not itself authorize every individual contract.
SEC Approval Does Not Mean Trading Has Started
Cboe announced in September that it planned to introduce KPI binary options during October, with Robinhood expected to become the first retail brokerage offering access. That timetable remains contingent on the remaining clearing infrastructure being authorized, even though the exchange-level rule change has now received SEC approval.
Cboe intends to clear the contracts through Cboe Clear U.S., which has applied for SEC registration as a securities clearing agency. The SEC published another amendment to that application on October 6, with the comment period running through October 30. As of October 16, approval of the exchange rule and approval of the intended clearing arrangement remain separate regulatory steps.
The SEC also explicitly limited its decision to Cboe’s particular securities-option structure. Its order acknowledged that similar KPI derivatives could be designed differently and potentially fall under CFTC jurisdiction. The ruling therefore establishes a pathway for these specific standardized options rather than declaring every corporate event contract a securities product.
For Coinbase, Robinhood and MARA, the practical change is a new potential market around operating performance itself. Once clearing and launch requirements are completed, traders could take binary positions on metrics such as exchange volume, funded customers or Bitcoin production without using the companies’ stock price as the settlement variable.
Emma Lawson writes about the pressure points where crypto meets the outside world: regulation, exchanges, macro policy, tokenized assets and geopolitical risk. From the US, she follows the decisions and events that can change how capital moves, how platforms operate and how digital assets are treated by institutions.
Her work is direct and evidence-led. Emma is less interested in legal theatre than in practical consequences: what changed, who is affected, which risks are real and where the market may be overreacting. She brings a steady voice to complex stories, especially when regulation, infrastructure and global markets start pulling in the same direction.