Short Bitcoin ETF Sees Slow Start in Market Despite Bearish Outlook for Bitcoin

cryptonews.com:

The newly launched short bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) from ProShares with the ticker BITI saw a slow start in the market on its first day of trading, before interest picked up noticeably on the second day.

The ETF, which launched on Tuesday this week on the NYSE Arca exchange, on its first trading day on Tuesday saw a trading volume of USD 183,284 shares, worth approximately USD 7m. However, the volume picked up significantly on day two of trading, when 870,000 shares changed hands for a value of about USD 35m, per ProShares data.

The sharp uptick in trading volume for the short ETF on Wednesday came as BTC fell in price from close to USD 21,000 to just over the key USD 20,000 mark.

The USD 7m trading volume for BITI on its first day makes up only a tiny fraction of the USD 1bn in volume that was seen on the first day of trading for BITO, the first regular bitcoin futures-backed ETF to launch in the US.

ProShares short bitcoin ETF first two days of trading (30 min chart):

Unlike a regular bitcoin ETF, ProShares’ new short bitcoin ETF lets investors make money as bitcoin falls in price. It thus offers a relatively straightforward alternative for traders who are bearish on the coin and want to bet on price drops.

Other alternatives for getting the same exposure include taking short positions in bitcoin futures or using margin accounts to go short in the bitcoin spot market.

Commenting on Twitter on the launch day, James Seyffart, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said that BITI had gotten off to “a pretty slow start based on its volume,” with only USD 1m traded after 1 hour on its first day.

The comment from Seyffart was picked up by Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, who added that the volume