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.
Open ETH on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
