Options on individual stocks now trade roughly $700 billion a day in underlying share value, a level not seen since 2021. Retail sentiment is matching that year too, with the American Association of Individual Investors reporting 40.3% of surveyed investors expect higher stock prices within six months. Bitcoin, which doubled from about $29,000 to almost $65,000 during the last options boom, has not repeated that run so far. It's sitting just under $84,000.
What the last boom actually looked like
The 2021 stock options surge wasn't a Wall Street invention. It came from a post-Covid wave of new retail traders who moved into derivatives after getting bored with buying shares outright. That same crowd is showing up again now, but this time the money isn't spreading across the market the way it did five years ago. Analysts say 2026 retail flows are concentrating in a handful of stocks rather than fanning out broadly. A dividend ETF topped Charles Schwab clients' September purchases, which tells you something about where the risk appetite is actually landing.
Historically, retail trading tends to rebound in October after a summer slowdown, according to Citadel Securities data. That seasonal pattern is the piece of the puzzle crypto bulls are watching closest right now.
Bitcoin ETFs are bleeding while stocks party
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs logged $65.40 million in net outflows on October 12. Every dollar of that came from BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust, or IBIT. Over the 13 sessions through October 9, total Bitcoin ETF inflows reached only about $232 million. That's not a collapse, but it's a trickle compared to the kind of flows that would be needed to fuel a 2021-style doubling.
Ethereum funds aren't faring any better. Spot Ethereum ETFs lost $85.39 million and extended their outflow streak to 10 consecutive days.
Why crypto is missing the October rebound
The gap between stock options activity and crypto fund flows is the whole story here. Retail traders are active — they're just active in equities, not digital assets. Whether crypto funds capture any of that October retail flow could decide if Bitcoin repeats its 2021 run. So far, the evidence points the other way.
The timing isn't great for crypto. October has historically been a strong month for retail engagement, and the stock market is soaking up most of that attention. A dividend ETF leading Schwab's September purchase list isn't exactly a risk-on signal for speculative assets either.
The one number that matters
Forty-point-three percent. That's the share of retail investors expecting stocks to climb over the next six months, according to the AAII survey. It's a sentiment reading that matches 2021 almost exactly. In 2021, that optimism spilled over into crypto — Bitcoin nearly doubled as the options boom took hold. This time, the optimism is there, but the money is staying in equities.
Bitcoin's price action just under $84,000 isn't a disaster. But it's not the breakout that the 2021 comparisons keep promising. The coin has spent this period consolidating while stock options volumes hit multi-year highs. That divergence is the thing to watch.
What happens over the next few weeks of October will tell whether crypto funds get any share of the seasonal retail uptick — or whether this year's options boom stays a stocks-only phenomenon.
