ETH, the Grayscale Ethereum Staking Mini ETF, is showing a notable shift in its lending market this week: short interest has continued climbing while availability has tightened sharply, a change from the extremely loose borrow conditions that defined the picture just days ago.
The most concrete development is the compression in availability. A week ago, availability ran above 1,700%, meaning borrow supply was effectively unlimited relative to demand. By September 29 it had dropped to 362%, still comfortable by most standards but a steep fall of 79% in a week. That move reflects a real increase in borrowing activity: short interest has risen 33% over the past week to 3.7% of the float, and is up nearly 48% over the past month. Cost to borrow has edged up roughly 19% on the week to 0.58%, though at that level it remains low in absolute terms. The direction of travel matters more than the level here: borrow that was essentially free and unlimited is becoming incrementally more contested.
Options positioning has also continued the cautious tilt flagged in the previous note. The put/call ratio has ticked up further to 0.33, now about 1.4 standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.26. The 52-week peak sits at 0.41, so there is still room before defensive positioning reaches an extreme. What has changed since the September 23 note is that this elevated put/call reading has persisted for a full week rather than being a single-day spike. Traders are sustaining their hedging activity even as the ETF's one-month gain holds at around 10%.
The ORTEX short score has followed the same trajectory. It has climbed from 28 on September 17 to 46 at the close of September 29, a steady acceleration that reflects the combined signal from rising short interest and tightening availability. A score in the mid-40s sits in neutral territory rather than at an extreme, but the pace of the move over the past two weeks is the more relevant fact.
Price action adds a layer of complexity. The ETF pulled back 2.2% on the week to close at $25.69, giving back a portion of October's strong monthly gain. The one-day bounce of 0.6% on September 29 suggests some stabilisation, but the combination of a weaker week, rising short interest, and a tightening borrow market points to a more contested setup than was visible a fortnight ago.
What to watch next is whether availability continues its compression toward the 100% to 200% range, the level at which borrow constraints begin to meaningfully affect the cost and ease of maintaining short positions.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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