ProShares, the biggest provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States, plans to debut a Bitcoin short ETF in the nation on Tuesday, June 21.
A short ETF, also known as an inverse ETF, tracks a particular benchmark only to return the opposite. In this case, the ProShares Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF, which will debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker BITI, will track the performance of the S&P CME Bitcoin Futures Index and return the opposite.
For those investors who prefer a mutual fund, ProFunds, the mutual funds arm of the company, will launch the Short Bitcoin Strategy ProFund (BITIX) with the same investment objective as that of the BITI ETF.
“With the additions of BITI and BITIX, ProShares and ProFunds will be the only fund families in the U.S. offering funds that allow investors to express their view on the direction of bitcoin—no matter whether they believe the price will go up or down,” added ProShares CEO Michael L. Sapir.
“Crypto Twitter” was quick to point out that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved Bitcoin futures ETFs, a short ETF, and a mutual fund, only to reject countless Bitcoin spot ETFs.
Will Clemente, the Lead Insights Analyst at Blockware Solutions, a vertically-integrated Bitcoin mining firm, believes that SEC and its Chair Gary Gensler have an agenda against Bitcoin.
Whether the comments from Clemente are true or not remains to be seen. Interestingly, a similar statement came from Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein, who believes that SEC is stalling Grayscale Bitcoin ETF approval, and he threatened to sue the financial authority if needed.
Time will tell how this ETF will affect the bitcoin market. Until then we wish everyone good luck to short the corn.
