The company behind the first US Bitcoin futures ETF wants to launch a product that will bet against the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
The company behind the first US Bitcoin futures ETF wants to launch a product that will bet against the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
The ProShares Short Bitcoin Strategic Exchange Traded Fund will track the inverse performance of an index of Bitcoin futures, according to a filing Tuesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. ProShares introduced the Bitcoin Strategy ETF (ticker code BITO) in October, ranking among the most popular ETFs launching on record.
If approved by regulators, the proposed fund would be the first US ETF to bet on the performance of Bitcoin futures. Rival issuer Direxion filed a similar strategy in October following the launch of BITO, but withdrew the application at the request of the SEC.
This time around, it’s likely that the SEC will be more comfortable with the possibility of an inverse ETF futures, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
“ProShares has nailed the SEC’s openness to ETF futures and so there’s no reason to doubt them here, especially since BITO trading has already established itself,” said Eric Balchunas, ETF analyst at BI. ok, it works clearly”. “This means the SEC is ready to take the next step.”
The filing leaves Bitcoin stuck. The coin is currently trading near $45,000, up from January’s low of nearly $33,000 but down significantly from November’s high of nearly $69,000. Short-term interest rates as a percentage of shares outstanding on BITO are now near 5.5%, down from a record 8% last month, data from IHS Markit Ltd. shows.
