CME Net Short Exposure Reaches ATH: Why Institutions Are Bearish on Ethereum

Reynaldo Marquez

3 years ago

2 mins read

Reason to trust

Strict editorial policy that focuses on accuracy, relevance, and impartiality

Created by industry experts and meticulously reviewed

The highest standards in reporting and publishing

How Our News is Made

Strict editorial policy that focuses on accuracy, relevance, and impartiality

Ad discliamer

Morbi pretium leo et nisl aliquam mollis. Quisque arcu lorem, ultricies quis pellentesque nec, ullamcorper eu odio.

Ethereum has seen some selling pressure today and has rolled back on a portion of its gains. The cryptocurrency was bouncing back from below the $1,000 levels but has found hurdles on lower timeframes.

At the time of writing, ETH’s price trades at $1,166 with a 3% loss in the last 24 hours and a 3% profit in the past 7 days.

Ethereum and Binance Coin were two of the best-performing assets in the crypto top 10 market cap. Their gains were able to pull back Bitcoin’s dominance which was close to reclaiming 50% of the sector’s total market cap.

The second crypto in the top 10 decoupled from Bitcoin, while the latter stuck, ETH moved to the upside. When Bitcoin lags, and Ethereum leads, is often considered an indicator of potential downside. In 2021, when Ethereum moved on its own, the crypto market experienced downside price action.

According to Arcane Research, Ethereum not only moved on its own on the spot market, but the futures market saw some interest action. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) ETH futures contracts have been trading at a discount when compared to ETH’s spot price.

This divergence seems to hint at future losses for Ethereum. As seen below, the ETH futures contract has been trending to the downside since the beginning of June 2022 with an increase in open interest.

This is the first time since the launch of this investment product that there is a discrepancy with its spot price. Arcane Research noted the following on why this could be bad news for the second crypto by market cap:

We also note that the Ether-denominated open interest on CME climbed to the highest level since early April on Thursday while seeing a slight decline over the weekend. According to the most recent CFTC Commitments of Traders reports, assets managers are shorting Ether heavily (…).

Are The Ethereum Shorts Justified?

The Arcane Research report claims this is the first-time institutions have been this short on Ethereum. These entities have positions of almost $40 million on the CME trading platform with a slight reduction in the past seven days.

Ethereum is currently in the process of migrating from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm. Recently, ETH core developers announced the delay of a component that will lead to this upgrade.

Called the “Ethereum Difficulty Bomb” is the mechanism that will enable people to mine ETH. The ETH core developers claimed this will have no impact on the migration, but the market could have a different perspective.

In addition, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler claimed that he is only willing to acknowledge Bitcoin as a commodity. He refused to speak about other cryptocurrencies but claimed the majority fits the description of a security.

If Ethereum is classified as a security, the decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFT) and other sectors could be impacted and forced to comply with new regulations. Remains to be seen if these institutions can profit after the crypto market has experienced a massive crash.

Reynaldo Marquez

A literature major, Reynaldo Márquez has been deeply immersed in the crypto industry since 2017. His journey began with translating articles for various crypto news outlets, a role he took on with zeal. In 2018, amidst a challenging market, he embraced his first writing assignment, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to the nascent industry and the promise of change it bears for many people worldwide.
In March 2021, he joined the prestigious crypto news outlet NewsBTC and Bitcoinist, where he not only reported on the latest crypto news but also had the privilege of interviewing some of the industry's most influential figures. A year later, his dedication and hard work were recognized, and he was promoted to Managing Editor, a position he currently holds with pride.
He believes in honesty, good communication, hard work, and the power of cryptocurrency and its potential to transform people's lives, especially those alienated by the legacy financial system. Born in 1992 in Venezuela, Reynaldo is familiar with how governments and central banks can negatively affect people, their everyday lives, and their futures by creating inflation and erasing their hopes for a better future. Thus, like many Venezuelans, he embraced this new technology to help him and his family navigate difficult times.
In another life, Reynaldo would have pursued a career as an investigator, most likely tracking down the origins of the Cyberpunk movement with the publication of William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer.’ The intersection between fiction and reality, with the materialization of Bitcoin in 2009, would have allowed him to dive deep into the crypto sphere as something more than a financial phenomenon but also a cultural shift in society that was brewing since the XX century, and maybe even sooner, in the XIX century with the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience.’
But that’s for another life. In this one, Reynaldo has been trading to improve his trading skills. Since 2023, he has been trying to learn Python to create successful strategies and find ways to execute them. It is a difficult task, which continues to keep him busy today and will most likely continue to keep him busy in the near and long term.
In his free time, he enjoys lifting heavy objects, reading, watching movies, and listening to his favorite music. Some of his favorite authors are Walt Whitman, William Faulkner, Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin, Raymond Carver, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Mario Vargas Llosa, Reinaldo Arenas, Rafael Cadenas, and many others. Lately, he has been primarily interested in reading about dystopic societies, a topic that deeply resonates with the crypto industry.
Since 2023, he has lived in Spain with his wife. He loves the weather, the food, and the people and their culture. They both expect to travel much more within the country they now call home and beyond its border. He hopes to retire with his wife, maybe in a quiet place near a beach, but most likely in a city close to a library and a university with his kids and, hopefully, grandkids.

Disclaimer: The information found on NewsBTC is for educational purposes only. It does not represent the opinions of NewsBTC on whether to buy, sell or hold any investments and naturally investing carries risks. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use information provided on this website entirely at your own risk.