PANews reported on December 21 that according to Cointelegraph, Coinbase's head of institutional research David Duong and senior sales trader Greg Sutton said in a podcast on December 19 that the launch of a spot Bitcoin ETF in the United States could lead to a "regulated" shortage of Bitcoin. Once these ETFs begin trading, two key risks may arise: the first risk is that the launch of a spot Bitcoin ETF may cause problems for institutional procurement of BTC, because issuers need to buy enough Bitcoin to hold in the ETF; the second risk involves a more popular institutional trading strategy, namely "basis trade", which refers to the use of the price difference between the spot price of Bitcoin and the Bitcoin futures contract.
According to Velo data, potential profits from basis trades have surged 20% in the past two weeks as trading volumes for Bitcoin spot and futures contracts have surged. However, as institutional investors increasingly invest directly in Bitcoin (through spot ETF products), the basis will narrow, making the trade much less profitable.
