JPMorgan analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said in a note this week that Bitcoin (BTC) could benefit from more price support than gold if demand for coverage in the ETF market eases, with short interest in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) hovering near its highest level of the year.
IBIT’s put-to-call open interest ratio is higher than that of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), which analysts view as a stronger hedge around Bitcoin, while short interest for GLD is below its historical average.
Bitcoin Vs. Gold
Bitcoin still faces a more skeptical positioning backdrop than gold despite recent inflows and a build-up in futures positioning, the note said. Additionally, figures reported by FINRA and compiled by MarketBeat put IBIT’s short base at 45.9 million shares as of the Aug. 31 settlement date, the highest reading of 2026 and up 23.8% from 37.1 million two weeks earlier.
The position equates to 3.53% of the float and would require 0.6 days of the fund’s average trading volume, or approximately 53 million shares, to cover. At the end of March, the short base stood at nearly 13 million shares, the lowest of the year.
Bitcoin and gold funds both attracted inflows after the Federal Reserve meeting in late July, when depreciation trading returned, according to the note. That’s part of the reason behind the rally that took Bitcoin toward $80,000 and gold near $4,600 an ounce, as investors turned to scarce assets amid U.S. budget concerns.
However, momentum faded over the past week as inflation-adjusted bond yields rose and the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act in a procedural vote that fell short of the necessary 60 votes, analysts wrote. Gold ETFs have recovered all of their outflows from earlier this year, the note said, while Bitcoin funds have recovered about half.
Panigirtzoglou’s team has already carried out the Bitcoin-gold comparison. In February, with crypto assets under pressure, analysts set a volatility-adjusted comparison to gold at $266,000 per Bitcoin, which they said was “an unrealistic target for this year” but which “shows the long-term upside potential once negative sentiment is reversed.”
Bitcoin traded near $76,500 on Thursday, little changed over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.
ETF flows swing sharply
Additionally, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have swung wildly this month, posting $236 million in outflows on September 1 before raking in $731 million on September 3, their strongest day since January, with IBIT alone accounting for about $454 million.
The funds’ net assets stood at $103.3 billion as of early September, or about 6% of Bitcoin’s market capitalization, according to SoSoValue data.
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