Calamos listed a downside-protected Bitcoin ETF on Cboe

Calamos Investments’ Bitcoin Structured Alt Protection ETF began trading under the ticker CBOJ on Cboe BZX Exchange on January 22, 2025. Cboe’s new-listings ledger records that exact listing date, while Calamos said the fund would open with a $25 net asset value.

The product was designed to match positive Bitcoin price returns only up to a predetermined cap while seeking to offset 100% of negative price returns before fees and expenses over a specified outcome period. Calamos promoted CBOJ as the first ETF offering that degree of Bitcoin downside protection. That “first” designation was an issuer claim, but the underlying launch, listing and payoff design are independently documented by Cboe and the fund’s Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

CBOJ mattered because it introduced a different form of regulated Bitcoin exposure. The first U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products had received SEC approval on January 10, 2024. Those products generally sought to track Bitcoin by holding the asset through custodians. CBOJ instead packaged Bitcoin-linked exposure inside an options-driven, defined-outcome strategy intended for investors concerned about the asset’s volatility.

A Bitcoin payoff assembled from securities and derivatives

The January 21, 2025 prospectus allowed CBOJ to use over-the-counter options and, when available, FLEX or listed options. Those contracts could reference selected U.S. spot Bitcoin ETPs—including IBIT, BTC, BITB, FBTC and ARKB—or an index designed to track Bitcoin. The strategy could also hold short-dated U.S. Treasury securities, cash and cash equivalents.

Conceptually, the portfolio combined a Bitcoin-linked exposure layer, an at-the-money put intended to offset losses, and a sold out-of-the-money call that financed protection while limiting gains. The result was not equivalent to owning unrestricted Bitcoin: a sufficiently large Bitcoin advance could exceed the fund’s cap without producing additional CBOJ gains.

Calamos estimated before the launch that the initial gross upside cap would fall between 10% and 11.5%. It said the final cap would be established near the end of trading on January 22. The contemporaneous SEC prospectus reviewed for this reconstruction still contained a blank cap field, so the estimated range should not be mistaken for a verified final rate.

“100% protection” carried strict conditions

The protection applied only before the fund’s 0.69% annual operating expenses and was designed for shareholders continuously holding from the beginning through the end of the complete outcome period. The January 21 prospectus described that window as January 22, 2025 through January 31, 2026, although an issuer release used January 30, 2026 as the ending date. That one-day discrepancy in contemporaneous records is unresolved here.

An investor purchasing after the outcome period began would enter at a different price and could absorb losses before the protected reference level was reached. Selling before the period ended could also produce materially different results. The prospectus further warned that extreme volatility, market disruption, derivatives performance, liquidity, counterparties and clearing arrangements could prevent the intended outcome. The fund was not a bank deposit, and neither the SEC nor any government agency guaranteed its shares.

Why the listing mattered

CBOJ showed how rapidly conventional asset-management techniques were being applied to Bitcoin after spot ETP approval. The product did not reduce Bitcoin’s underlying volatility. It redistributed that volatility contractually: shareholders surrendered gains above a cap in exchange for an attempted floor over a fixed measurement window.

That trade-off marked another stage in Bitcoin’s institutionalization. By January 22, 2025, the U.S. market was no longer limited to choosing between direct ownership, futures exposure and spot-tracking funds. It had begun offering engineered Bitcoin outcomes resembling structured strategies already used for equity indexes—while retaining risks and limitations specific to derivatives and digital-asset reference markets.