B3, Latin America’s largest stock exchange, began trading call and put options on bitcoin, ether, and solana futures on July 6, 2026, according to a B3 circular (025/2026-VPC). The products give Brazilian brokers, funds, and professional traders a listed way to hedge crypto price moves or trade volatility without ever taking custody of the coins themselves.

What launched, and how it is built

The circular, published June 9 and effective for trading from July 6, lists six standardized contracts:

  • Call and put options on bitcoin futures denominated in Brazilian reais (ticker BIT)
  • Call and put options on ethereum futures (ticker ETR)
  • Call and put options on solana futures (ticker SOL)

Each option is written on an existing B3 crypto futures contract. When an in-the-money option is exercised, the holder receives a long or short futures position at the strike, not coins in a wallet. B3 is explicit on that point: trading, settlement, and exercise “do not imply the provision of custody, transfer or administration services for spot cryptocurrencies.” That keeps the whole stack inside the exchange’s listed-derivatives machinery and under supervision by Brazil’s securities regulator, the CVM.

Premiums on the bitcoin futures options are quoted in reais. Ether and solana futures (and therefore the options that sit on them) stay dollar-linked, matching how those underlyings already trade on B3. Secondary coverage of the launch, including CoinDesk and Crypto Briefing, puts independent trading hours at roughly 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. São Paulo time, with designated market makers to support liquidity. The circular itself points traders to B3’s product pages for final fee schedules and session parameters once the contracts went live.

B3’s futures underlyings reference Nasdaq crypto price series (the circular carries Nasdaq’s standard licensing disclaimer for the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana reference prices). That is index-linked exposure on a regulated venue, not an OTC token deal.

Context: a two-year derivatives build

This is the options layer on a path B3 has been walking for more than two years. Bitcoin futures in reais arrived in April 2024. Ether and solana futures followed in June 2025. Options are the tool set that lets desks express a view on volatility, buy defined-risk protection, or write premium around futures they already hold — the same playbook equity and FX traders use every day on B3’s other books.

For compliance-constrained managers in Brazil, that sequence matters more than the marketing. Mandates that bar spot crypto custody or offshore unregulated venues can still allow listed futures and options on a CVM-supervised exchange. The product is price risk and vol risk, cleared and margined like other B3 derivatives. It is not a substitute for self-custody of coins you intend to hold long term; it is a local market for people who need exposure or hedges inside the traditional brokerage stack.

Brazil is already one of the region’s deepest crypto economies by volume, with heavy stablecoin use in payments and treasury flows. Spot trading still lives mostly on licensed VASPs and peer platforms. What B3 is adding is the institutional risk layer next to that retail and payments activity: standardized contracts, exchange-level clearing, and an audit trail that risk committees can actually file.

Who this is for (and who it is not)

Local brokers and prop desks get listed calls and puts for strategies that used to require offshore crypto options venues or synthetic structures. Protective puts on a bitcoin futures book, covered-call-style overlays, and directional vol trades become possible in reais clearing hours.

Asset managers and family offices that can only trade on regulated Brazilian venues gain a compliant crypto-linked tool without standing up token custody. That is the compliance story more than the speculative one.

Retail users who only want to hold bitcoin or stablecoins should not read this as a reason to migrate into leveraged options. Futures options carry margin, leverage, basis risk, and automatic exercise into futures positions. You still need a brokerage relationship that offers the product, and you still take derivatives risk. Spot holdings in self-custody remain a separate decision from trading B3 paper.

The design also has a quiet LatAm knock-on. When São Paulo’s primary exchange deepens crypto derivatives, it sets a template other regional exchanges and regulators watch: list futures first, then options, keep settlement off-spot, keep the CVM-style perimeter tight. Mexico, Colombia, and Chile do not have identical products today; Brazilian desks that already clear on B3 now have one more reason to keep crypto risk management onshore rather than routing it through offshore books.

Takeaway

B3 did not invent crypto options. It put them on Latin America’s busiest exchange, under CVM rules, settling into reais and dollar crypto futures instead of tokens. For Brazilian institutions that need hedges and volatility tools without custody, that is a real product launch. For everyone else, it is further evidence that the region’s formal markets are building crypto risk infrastructure in parallel with the stablecoin rails people already use day to day.

Options and futures are leveraged instruments. They can lose more than the premium you paid if you are on the wrong side of a margin call. This is news about market structure, not a recommendation to trade these contracts. Not financial advice.