Institutional investors open shorts on bitcoin en masse

Institutional investors opened shorts on bitcoin in droves this past week. On 22 June, ProShares launched the first US short bitcoin ETF, and the wealthiest investors on the planet are eagerly taking advantage of it. Last week, 80 percent of inflows to institutional funds, totalling $51.4 million, consisted of inflows to short bitcoin funds.

Does not indicate negative sentiment

Now, of course, it sounds as if institutional investors have completely lost confidence in bitcoin for a while when 80 percent of inflows consist of short positions. However, CoinShares notes that in addition to the huge inflows into short products in the United States, there were actually inflows into long products in countries such as Brazil, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland.

“This underlines that investors are adding to their long positions at current prices and that the short products in the United States are seeing large inflows primarily because they are available for the first time. Not because sentiment is negative right now,” CoinShares said in their weekly blog.

It is fair to add that Brazil, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland together account for an inflow of 20 million dollars in long products. That pales into insignificance compared to the $51.4 million in short products purchased in the United States. The coming weeks will therefore show to what extent CoinShares’ analysis from the previous paragraph is correct.

In any case, another inflow

Although the inflow for institutional investment products consists mainly of short bitcoin investments, there is at least an inflow again. In fact, last week institutional investment products lost $423 million in capital with outflows.

This represented the highest outflow ever since CoinShares started their weekly report. Last week too, short-bitcoin funds escaped the carnage by recording inflows of $15.3 million. In total, the short funds have seen inflows of $77.2 million for 2022 so far.

Author

  • Gabriele Spapperi

    Gabriele Spapperi is a veteran cryptocurrency investor and blockchain technology specialist. He became fascinated with Bitcoin and distributed ledgers while studying computer science at MIT in 2011.

    Since 2013, Gabriele has actively traded major cryptocurrencies and identified early-stage projects to invest in. He contributes articles to leading fintech publications sharing his insights on blockchain technology, crypto markets, and trading strategies.

    With over a decade of experience in the crypto space, Gabriele provides reliable insights and analysis on the latest developments in digital assets and blockchain platforms. When he's not analyzing crypto markets, Gabriele enjoys travel, golf, and fine wine. He currently resides in Austin, Texas.

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