The story on BTC Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust has shifted meaningfully since last week's note: the shorts that had been quietly rebuilding have now reversed course, and options positioning has turned its most bullish in the past year.
The clearest change is in short interest. Since the July 15 note flagged the rebuild — with shorts near 800,000 shares — the position has unwound sharply. Short interest fell 23% across the week to around 440,000 shares, or just 0.40% of the free float, the lowest reading in the 30-day data window. That's a decisive reversal of the pattern that had been forming: a month ago shorts were pushing toward 1.1 million shares; today they're roughly half that. The borrow market confirms there's no residual pressure. Cost to borrow has collapsed to 0.20%, down more than 50% on the week and a fraction of the 3.8% peak hit at the start of July. Availability is effectively unlimited — the lending pool holds around 25 million shares against fewer than half a million shorted.
The more interesting signal this week is in options. Call appetite has rarely been this dominant. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.27, more than two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.30 — the most call-skewed reading of the past year, approaching but not yet at the 52-week low of 0.23. That's a notable shift. Through June and into early July, the PCR held steadily in the 0.30–0.33 range. The move lower has been consistent over the past two weeks, with each successive session printing a softer ratio. Taken together with the short covering, it paints a picture of investors leaning into upside rather than hedging against downside.
The ORTEX short score sits at 25.9, essentially unchanged from the prior week's range of 25.7–27.3. That low score — reflecting minimal short-side conviction — is consistent with a product that functions primarily as a long-only vehicle. BTC closed at $29.38 on July 21, up 2.9% on the week and 5.5% over the past month, tracking Bitcoin's underlying price action as intended.
What to watch: whether the put/call ratio continues pressing toward its 52-week low at 0.23, and whether the short interest decline holds or — as has happened twice already this summer — reverses again in a brief rebuild.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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