Ethereum Bears Win Big as Short ETFs Dominate 2025 Rankings

So far in 2025, the most profitable ETF trades have come from betting against Ethereum. Leveraged funds that short ETH have delivered staggering returns

The year 2025 has not been kind to Ethereum, and its misery has brought immense gains for bears, especially those wagering via short ETFs.

As of mid-April, the best-performing ETFs in 2025 were all leveraged funds betting against ETH.

ProShares’ ETHD and T-Rex’s ETQ, both employing 2x inverse strategies to double the impact of ETH’s price moves in the opposite direction, had delivered gains of 247% and 219%, respectively, according to Bloomberg.

This adds extra volatility to already turbulent waters.

ETH itself has had a punishing year, with its price falling more than 50% as of mid-April.

It’s also been “brutal” for Ethereum bulls, according to Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas.

While Ethereum still boasts the largest total value locked among blockchains, at about $46 billion according to DeFiLlama, its network economic engine has stalled.

Following its major Dencun upgrade last March, which aimed to lower transaction costs, Ethereum’s fee revenue plummeted by roughly 95%.

Most transactions are now taking place on Layer-2 networks, but monetizing them has proven difficult.

In one week alone, Ethereum earned just over 3 ETH from activity on L2s like Arbitrum and Base.

To return to pre-upgrade revenue levels, on-chain data suggests L2 volume would need to increase by more than 22,000 times.

Analysts now argue that Ethereum’s long-term success will hinge on its efficiency as a data host for scaling solutions rather than its ability to generate fees.

Meanwhile, usage across major smart contract platforms, including Ethereum and Solana, declined in Q1 as traders grew cautious amid looming tariffs and heightened geopolitical tensions under the Trump administration.

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