Cody McGrath 
BITI, ProShares’ first short Bitcoin ETF, started slowly but quickly gained traction, increasing trading volume by 380 percent on day two.
The ProShares Bitcoin Short Strategy Exchange-Traded Fund (BITI) only traded a meager 183,300 shares on June 21, less than 1% of the volume $BITO had at this time on Day One, according to ETF analyst at Bloomberg Eric Balchunas.
However, according to Yahoo Finance, the volume of shares traded the following day increased by almost four times to 886,200 shares, valued at around $36.2 million.
Without owning any Bitcoin themselves, investors can take short bets on the Bitcoin market using the BITI exchange-traded fund (ETF). Shorting refers to betting that an asset or market will lose value.
Michael L. Sapir, CEO of ProShares, praised the volume on day two as an indication of demand and the affordable BITI fee structure.
“The reception that BITI is getting in the market affirms investor demand for a convenient and cost-effective ETF to potentially profit or hedge their cryptocurrency holdings when bitcoin drops in value.”
Additionally, ProShares offers the October 18-launched Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO). On the first day of trading, BITO had a volume of roughly $1 billion.
BITO’s volume was among the top 2 percent of all ETFs by November, but it has since lost 50.93% of its value.
Of course, the $1B in long positions on day one pale in comparison to the $36M. This could indicate that the majority of investors are unsure if there is still downside potential. The largest cryptocurrency by market size has lost more than 30% of its value in the last 30 days.
James Seyffart, a CFA at Bloomberg Intelligence, laughed at BITI’s comparatively dismal performance on opening day. On June 21, Seyffart tweeted that BITI had only done roughly $1 million in volume in the first hour of trading.
Seyffart said that he expected the opening volume to be low, but “Yea def not saying it’s a surprise. Though I must admit I’m a tad surprised it’s THIS low.”
By closing, BITI’s volume at a daily average price of $39.06 per share was around $7.1 million.
The newly launched Bitcoin ETFs in Australia have likewise had trouble garnering interest. It was anticipated that $1 billion would come into the Cosmos Purpose Bitcoin Access ETF (CBTC) in April. Its launch date and that of the ETFS 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (EBTC) were postponed to May 12. CBTC currently only manages $810,000 in assets, but EBTC is managing $2.8 million.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has been refusing American traders’ requests for a spot Bitcoin ETF for many years. When industry insiders and regulators work together more closely to make sure that both are on the same page, Commissioner Hester Pierce thinks a Bitcoin spot ETF can be introduced in the US.