Jiang Zhuoer, founder of mining pool B.TOP, said he plans to stop shorting Ether after the current market cycle and shift to shorting Bitcoin instead. His stated approach is to use WBETH as collateral and short an equivalent amount of BTC spot.
Jiang said the structure has three practical advantages. In his description, it is economically similar to selling spot ETH but comes without leverage or a liquidation line. It also keeps ETH staking income intact and allows the holder to collect long funding rates. He added that only a small amount of ETH needs to be left on an exchange as collateral, which lowers the risk tied to exchange failure or theft.
He also laid out why he now prefers to short Bitcoin rather than Ether. First, he argued that Strategy is unlikely to add more Bitcoin for a long period in the foreseeable future. Second, BitMine is still buying Ether. He added that progress in sectors such as real-world asset tokenization, or RWA, could mean this bear market repeats the last cycle, with Bitcoin and Ether reaching their lows at different times.
In a social media post, Jiang wrote: “After this round is over, I won’t short ETH anymore. I’ll short BTC instead.”
As of 4 p.m. Taipei time on July 28, CoinGecko data cited in the report showed Bitcoin at $63,451, down 2.66% over 24 hours and 3.65% over seven days, with the price still 49.67% below its all-time high. Ether was quoted at $1,882.02, down 4.13% on the day and 2.65% over seven days. Over a 30-day window, Bitcoin was up 5.89% while Ether had gained 20.1%. The ETH/BTC ratio stood at 0.02965 after briefly moving above 0.03 on July 27, its highest level since late April. The Fear and Greed Index was at 29, still in fear territory.
Strategy has paused Bitcoin purchases for five straight weeks
Jiang’s first argument centered on Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy. An 8-K filed on July 27 showed that, as of July 26, the company held 843,775 BTC acquired at a total cost of $63.69 billion, or an average cost of $75,476 per Bitcoin.
Strategy bought no Bitcoin during the week of July 20 to July 26, marking a fifth consecutive week without additional purchases. The same filing said the company had increased its U.S. dollar reserves to $3.75 billion and had also launched a $1 billion digital credit repurchase program.
Using the cited market price of $63,451, the report calculated that the Bitcoin position was worth about $53.5 billion, leaving an unrealized loss of roughly $10.1 billion. On a per-Bitcoin basis, that works out to an average paper loss of $12,025.
The report said the bigger constraint for Strategy is its mNAV metric. That measure fell below 1 last Friday, meaning the company’s stock was trading below the net asset value of the Bitcoin on its balance sheet. Its prior cycle had been to issue stock, buy Bitcoin, and lift Bitcoin per share. Once mNAV drops below 1, the same move starts diluting Bitcoin per share instead, reversing that flywheel.
BitMine keeps buying ETH while ETF flows split
The comparison on the other side is BitMine Immersion (NYSE: BMNR). The Ether treasury company led by Tom Lee held 5,787,414 ETH, equal to about 4.8% of circulating supply, and bought another 9,946 ETH last week.
Since launching its Ether treasury strategy on June 30, 2025, BitMine has added ETH every week, according to the report. Of that total, 4,917,189 ETH had already been staked.
ETF flow data showed a similar split. Figures from Farside Investors cited in the report showed that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of $11.6 million on July 27, including $8.8 million from BlackRock’s IBIT and $2.8 million from Fidelity’s FBTC. On the same day, spot Ether ETFs posted a net inflow of $11.7 million, all of it going to BlackRock’s ETHA. The daily totals were small, but the directions were opposite.
The position is really a bet on the ETH/BTC ratio
Broken down, the trade is not simply a directional short on Bitcoin. WBETH is Binance’s wrapped staked Ether, and its price carries a premium to spot ETH as staking rewards accumulate. The report cited WBETH at $2,070.3, about 10% above spot Ether.
Using WBETH as collateral while shorting an equivalent amount of Bitcoin leaves Ether exposure and staking yield on the asset side, with a matching Bitcoin short on the liability side. In dollar terms, that makes the position close to neutral. The main driver of profit and loss is the direction of the ETH/BTC exchange rate.
On the technical side, the report said ETH/BTC broke above the upper boundary of a downtrend channel in July that had been in place since August 2025. It also moved above its 200-day moving average for the first time since January this year. Bitcoin dominance, meanwhile, was holding near 59%. If the ratio can stay above 0.03, the next resistance is at 0.0316, followed by 0.0352. If it falls back below the 200-day moving average, the long-ETH, short-BTC thesis would need to be reassessed.
The report also cautioned that market-neutral does not mean risk-free. Because the collateral itself is WBETH, a weakening of Ether against Bitcoin would shrink the value of the collateral at the same time that the short position takes losses, putting pressure on both sides of the trade.