ProShares’ new SEC Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) filing looks to offer a product that lets investors easily bet against Bitcoin.
ProShares, the firm behind a Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2021, has filed for approval for a new fund targeted at investors seeking short opportunities in the Bitcoin market.
The company’s application with the SEC is for a Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF, according to documents at the US securities markets regulator.
The inverse ETF will track futures and not the spot BTC price, with (-1x) returns based on the daily performance of the Bitcoin Futures Contracts Index.
“The Fund does not seek to achieve its stated investment objective over a period of time greater than a single day," the company said in a summary of the filing.
In with a 'shot', says analyst
ProShares’ filing for a new Bitcoin ETF comes in the wake of numerous rejections of spot Bitcoin ETFs since the agency approved the firm’s Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) last October.
While the SEC can reject the new fund to add to a list of many binned over the years, last year’s approval of BITO could prove crucial for ProShares’ latest application.
Eric Balchunas, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence has opined that he sees a positive outcome for the Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF, despite precedence in last year’s rejection of a similar product by ETF provider Direxion.
In his view, ProShares’ new ETF has a “shot” going by the company’s previous success as well as the lack of any major issues around Futures ETFs.
