Same asset class. Two different countries next to each other. Two completely different institutional postures. In the U.S., regulators quietly cleared the way for more flexible trading tools around Bitcoin and Ether ETF products.
In Canada, the official framing still treats crypto as a systemic risk story that needs managing, even while acknowledging it has become part of the country’s core financial system.
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Both positions are defensible. Together they show that “crypto normalization” is not a single thing happening at the same speed everywhere.
What changed in the U.S.
On Sunday, the SEC waived its standard 30-day waiting period to immediately implement rule changes filed by NYSE Arca and NYSE American on March 10, completing an industry-wide transition that had already been underway at Nasdaq, MIAX, MEMX, and Cboe.
The changes remove the 25,000-contract position and exercise limit that had governed options on 11 spot Bitcoin and Ether ETF products since their November 2024 debut.
The products now operating without the cap include BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund, ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, and Bitcoin and Ether products from Bitwise and Grayscale.
The cap removal also opens the door to FLEX options, contracts with customizable strike prices, expiration dates, and exercise styles, which were not previously available for these products.
In practical terms, this brings crypto ETF options treatment almost fully in line with how standard commodity ETF options already work, with position limits now determined by each exchange’s ordinary framework based on trading volume and shares outstanding rather than a crypto-specific ceiling.
The pattern across all U.S. exchanges is now clear: the extra guardrails that crypto-specific products had at launch are being systematically removed as the instruments mature and liquidity deepens.
What Canada is saying
Canada’s official posture this week tells a different story, not a hostile, but a deliberately cautious one.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of England who once said Bitcoin was “failing” as money and that private stablecoins needed the same regulatory protections as commercial bank deposits, has not blocked crypto adoption as PM, but his administration is controlling the terms of it.
As Morva Rohani of the Canadian Web3 Council put it to Cointelegraph:
“Canada is beginning to treat parts of crypto as closer to the core financial system rather than purely peripheral, but the primary lens is still risk management.”
In practice, that means tighter registration standards: the CSA recently closed off the “restricted dealer” category that some exchanges relied on, forcing full CIRO registration, and FINTRAC has revoked the money services business registrations of 47 crypto businesses so far in 2026, with Canada’s finance minister vowing to maintain that pace.
An OECD-aligned Crypto Assets Reporting Framework comes into force in 2027. The split between Bitcoin ETFs, which move forward, and DeFi and self-custody, where policymakers are considerably less comfortable, is also worth noting: being recognized as part of Canada’s core financial infrastructure does not come with just open arms. More oversight is also on the menu.
Two governments, one asset class
Neither position is irrational. The U.S. is responding to a mature ETF market with deep institutional demand by removing friction that was always meant to be temporary.
Canada is responding to the same maturation by raising compliance bars to protect the system it is now formally acknowledging crypto is part of.
What retail investors should take away is that “normalization” is not a single event. It happens at different speeds, through different filters, and with very different political instincts in different jurisdictions.
In Canada, being recognized as part of the core financial system comes with more paperwork, and fewer registered players allowed to operate.
Crypto market researcher and external contributor at Kriptoworld
Wheel. Steam engine. Bitcoin.
📅 Published: March 25, 2026 • 🕓 Last updated: March 25, 2026
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