The 2 best-performing exchange-traded funds (ETFs) year-to-date are uncovered to brief Ethereum (ETH) 2x leveraged positions.
Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas shared on April 9 that the UltraShort Ether ETF (ETHD), managed by ProShares, surpassed 247% in year-to-date returns and registered almost $14 million in belongings beneath administration.
REX Shares’ T-Rex 2X Inverse Ether Day by day Goal ETF (ETQ) adopted intently, with a 219.2% efficiency in the identical interval and $1.57 million in belongings.
Balchunas stated:
“The very best performing ETF this 12 months is the -2x Ether ETF $ETHD, up 247%. #2 is the opposite -2x Ether ETF. I used to be positive it might be $UVIX (2x VIX), however that’s #3. Brutal.”
Ethereum worth reversal fuels inverse efficiency
Though the funds are designed for short-term directional publicity, the extended drawdown in Ether has created circumstances beneath which day by day compounding results have amplified features for inverse leveraged merchandise.
Whereas dangerous over prolonged durations on account of path dependency, these mechanics have favored these funds in a sustained downward worth setting.
In keeping with Balchunas, this efficiency surpassed that of UVIX, a 2x leveraged VIX-linked ETF, which had been anticipated to high the leaderboard however at the moment ranks third at 171.7% returns.
The outperformance of ETHD and ETQ coincides with a pointy correction in Ethereum’s worth because the starting of 2025.
As of April 9, ETH is down 50%, a correction that was softened after President Donald Trump paused for 90 days the tariffs for nations open to barter with the US. In the identical interval, the crypto market averaged a 48.5% correction, in accordance with Artemis data.
The efficiency is available in a 12 months when volatility and macroeconomic uncertainty have produced uneven circumstances throughout digital belongings, with leveraged inverse merchandise benefiting from directional bias over a number of classes.
Ethereum’s weak spot has additionally diverged from Bitcoin’s (BTC) 12.4% year-to-date correction, suggesting extra resilience amid ETF inflows and institutional curiosity.
Moreover, the BTC/ETH pair reached an all-time low of 0.1855 BTC on April 9, sustaining a descending pattern that began in September 2022.
