Lombard shifts yield strategy to Bitwise’s covered-call options with $10M pilot

Lombard Finance is rerouting the yield engine behind its ethereum product. Instead of relying on its existing yield sources, the protocol will tap into an options strategy managed by Bitwise Asset Management, with a $10 million pilot set to launch next week.

Bitwise launched its Ethereum Option Income Strategy ETF, trading under the ticker IETH, on October 2, 2025. That product uses a synthetic covered-call strategy to generate income from ether exposure, and it gave Bitwise a ready-made infrastructure to offer the same mechanics to partners like Lombard.

The Lombard-Bitwise relationship runs deeper than ethereum

This isn’t the first collaboration between the two firms. Lombard and Bitwise formalized a strategic partnership in March 2026 focused on Bitcoin Smart Accounts, a framework designed to let institutions earn yield on custodied Bitcoin without handing over their keys to a third party.

The Bitcoin side of the partnership targets an enormous pool of dormant capital. An estimated $500 billion sits in institutional Bitcoin custody. The Smart Accounts initiative aims to put that capital to work by combining DeFi lending with tokenized real-world assets, all while keeping the Bitcoin in its original custody arrangement.

Bitwise manages more than $15 billion in client assets and has been steadily expanding its product lineup to include options-income strategies across multiple crypto assets.

What this signals for the broader market

The risk, of course, is that covered-call strategies cap upside. If ether stages a sharp rally, Lombard’s users would miss some of the gains because the sold calls would get exercised against them. That’s the fundamental trade-off baked into every covered-call position, and it’s one that income-focused investors generally accept willingly.

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