According to CoinDesk, ProShares, the issuer of the first ETF in the United States linked to Bitcoin futures, said that concerns that the costs associated with derivatives trading will lead to tracking errors are unfounded. The product has closely tracked the spot price performance of Bitcoin since day one.

The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy Fund began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2021 under the ticker BITO, allowing investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin without holding the currency. The ETF is the world's largest crypto fund, investing in regulated and cash-settled Bitcoin futures listed on CME.

It is reported that from the beginning, observers speculated that BITO and other futures-based ETFs would significantly underperform Bitcoin. Typically, longer-term futures contracts trade at higher prices than futures contracts that are close to expiration, a situation known as contango. During bull markets, contango tends to be steeper, and the steeper the contango, the higher the cost.

In this regard, Simeon Hyman, global investment strategist at ProShares, said in an interview: "Concerns about rolling costs are wrong. BITO has been closely tracking the price of Bitcoin. Since its launch (as of July 18), BITO's return has been -54.5%, while Bitcoin's return has been -51.5%. And more than half of the difference is BITO's annual fee of 95 basis points." According to Hyman, BITO will continue to pay close attention to spot prices because the interest income from the fund's holdings of cash will offset the rolling costs that are closely related to the interest rate level of the U.S. economy.