ProShares to Launch Short Ether Strategy ETF in November

Last week, launching a trio of Ethers futures exchange-traded funds, ProShares has officially launched another product. The ProShare Short Ether Strategy ETF is set to begin its journey from November 2023 onwards. 

Registration of SETH

As per the SEC’s recent filing archives made on Friday, October 13th, it is clear from the beginning that ProShares Trust has registered Short Ether Strategy ETF under The Investment Company Act of 1940, as well as, under The Securities Act of 1933. 

As per Blockworks’ recent report, ProShares expects that their registration for SETH will come into effect from October 15 onwards. Hence, the plan is to introduce the fund from early November onward. 

Objective of Investment

As per the recent filing, the daily investment results of the ProShares Short Ether Strategy ETF (the “Fund”), before fees and expenses, are intended to represent the opposite (-1x) of the daily performance of the S&P CME Ether Futures Index (the “Index”). The Fund does not short ether directly. Instead, the Fund looks to profit from ether price declines.

What are the attached risks?

The Prospectus shares that there are three different types of risks attached: 

1. Investment Strategy risk
2. Ether market volatility risk
3. Ether futures risk
4. Ether risk
5. Leverage Risk
6. Liquidity risk
7. Short or Inverse Investing Risk
8. Holding period risk
9. Counterparty risk
10. Correlation risk
11. Concentration risk
12. Index performance risk
13. Intraday price performance risk
14. Market price variance risk
15. Cost of futures investment risk
16. Subsidiary investment risk
17. Borrowing risk
18. Money market risk
19. Non-diversification risk
20. Authorized participant risk
21. Cash purchases and redemption risk

What About ProShares’ Previous trio?

The three ProShares Ether futures funds that are currently available, however, including two that invest in both Bitcoin BTC and Ether futures contracts, made their debut on October 2 alongside comparable goods from VanEck and Bitwise.  

Nearly two years after the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, the first Bitcoin futures ETF, joined the market in October 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved Ether futures ETFs.

The Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF from ProShares was released in June 2022 as part of their ongoing distribution of Bitcoin futures ETFs. The Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF now has assets of about $75 million, compared to the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF’s $850 million.