https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220620005101/en/ProShares-to-Launch-the-First-U.S.-Short-Bitcoin-Linked-ETF-on-June-21
“As recent times have shown, bitcoin can drop in value,” said ProShares CEO Michael L. Sapir [who was recently caught gleefully masturbating with a red dildo. —D.W.]. “BITI affords investors who believe that the price of bitcoin will drop with an opportunity to potentially profit or to hedge their cryptocurrency holdings. BITI enables investors to conveniently obtain short exposure to bitcoin through buying an ETF in a traditional brokerage account.”
BITI is designed to deliver the inverse (opposite) of the performance of the S&P CME Bitcoin Futures Index. It seeks to achieve its objective on each investment day and for no other period. BITI seeks to obtain exposure through bitcoin futures contracts.
Does anyone still doubt that Bitcoin is under economic attack? They are not even trying to hide it.
After years worth of SEC denials of applications for a spot ETF long on Bitcoin...
Amidst what is, objectively, Bitcoin’s worst bear market since its drastically unstable earliest years...
...we suddenly get an ETF to short Bitcoin.
Lovely.
Love the symbolism: “BITI”. It reminds me of the itty-bitty bitcoins I HODL and cherish in my financial dollhouse.
I am against all ETFs. I recognize that, with permissionless money, I cannot stop people from trading it through the vehicle of an ETF. Nonetheless, I despise the concept of a Bitcoin ETF.* Don’t get greedy and smoke Hopium for the mirage of an ETF pumping oh-so-great institutional money into our market.
Yes, this is me talking. The one who likes the idea of BTC-PERP, options, and some other derivatives. I don’t want any ETF.
People who want to invest in Bitcoin should buy spot BTC directly. I am very well aware that an ETF is a vehicle for regulated investors to gain BTC exposure, when they are prohibited from buying BTC. The solution is not an ETF: It is to change the regulations that forbid various types of funds from buying BTC.
But fair is fair! To approve a short ETF when there is no long ETF is pretty much just the SEC’s way of saying, “We hate Bitcoin!”
To hell with all shorters.
I have a perpetual ire for anyone who shorts Bitcoin. If you want to short or hedge, short the perp. That’s what it’s there for. No actual bitcoins are harmed when you short the perp, because you are not actually trading BTC. When I say that I see Bitcoin almost as if it were a living creature, I mean it. Thou shalt not short Bitcoin.
Yes, it is complicated by funding fees; but, well, TANSTAAFL—and if you time it perfectly, then you will be on the side receiving the funding fees as the market catches up to you. That won’t help much with a long-term hedge, but—well, why do you need a long-term hedge against Bitcoin?
And to hell with anyone who invests in the short ETF.
To be continued. That is some bearish news—more, more bearish news. What is the proper reaction to it?
* So stated with apologies to ETFBitcoin, who is awesome.