BTC has stabilised near $33.56, but the put/call ratio is still running well above its historical average — and borrowing costs just hit their highest level since the data begins.
The options story that began two weeks ago has not resolved. The put/call ratio climbed further to 0.32, nearly 1.9 standard deviations above its 20-day mean of 0.27. That is close to — but still below — the 52-week high of 0.46, leaving room for the defensive skew to deepen. What is notable is the persistence: the PCR was near 0.25 throughout April and the first half of May, and has held above 0.30 for most of the past two weeks. This no longer looks like a single-session hedge. It looks like a structural shift in how options market participants are managing their exposure to the trust.
The short side of the ledger has moved in the opposite direction. Short interest — at just 0.24% of the float — is effectively negligible, down 69% over the past month from an April peak above 1.1 million shares borrowed. The lending pool is about as loose as it gets: availability is running at over 9,999%, meaning the pool of shares available to borrow dwarfs anything currently lent out. There is no crowding, no squeeze dynamic, and no meaningful short thesis being expressed through the stock loan market.
The cost-to-borrow tells a different story. CTB jumped to 1.03% this week — up 42% on the week and the highest reading in the 30-day dataset. That is a sharp move for a trust where the borrow market is otherwise extremely uncongested. The prior notes flagged the anomaly when CTB doubled to 0.75% last week; it has now risen again even as short interest continued to fall and availability remained sky-high. The disconnect — borrow costs rising while demand for borrows is declining — is the clearest unresolved tension in this trust's positioning data right now.
The ORTEX short score has drifted gently lower over the past two weeks, from 26.7 on May 13 to 25.7 today. That modest easing is consistent with the continued short interest unwind and the loose lending conditions. Nothing in the score suggests a crowded or stressed short setup. The score's steady decline mirrors the orderly retreat in borrowed shares.
What to watch: whether the put/call ratio pulls back toward its 20-day mean — which would confirm the recent elevated readings were a tactical hedge into the price dip — or continues to hold above 0.30, and whether the borrow cost anomaly resolves or widens further as the lending pool and CTB continue to diverge.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open BTC 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.
