JPMorgan analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou published a report comparing how investors are treating gold ETFs versus bitcoin ETFs. The finding is simple: gold funds have already recovered every dollar of this year's outflows, while bitcoin funds have clawed back only about half.
The gap isn't just about speed of recovery. The bank flagged short interest and hedging around the largest bitcoin ETF, BlackRock's IBIT, which sits near its highest level of the year, while the same metric for the gold ETF GLD sits below its historical average. For investors, that means one thing: judging market mood purely by inflow size isn't enough. It also matters how aggressively market participants are hedging the positions they already hold.
Gold fully recovered, bitcoin only halfway there
Inflows into both assets picked up in late July, after the Fed's meeting, when the so-called debasement trade came back into fashion. Investors bought both gold and bitcoin as insurance against a weaker dollar.
But the paths diverged. Gold ETFs fully offset every outflow recorded earlier in 2026. Bitcoin ETFs have recovered roughly half of what they lost, and demand for them has even eased slightly over the past few days, JPMorgan's analysts said.
The debasement trade itself isn't new. Investors buy gold and bitcoin together whenever they expect a weaker dollar from loose monetary policy or fiscal risk. This summer, the Fed's decision amplified that motive, and for a while both assets looked like a natural pair for protecting capital.
A trade that ran out of steam in a week
Just a week ago, both assets were climbing together. Then things shifted: inflation-adjusted bond yields rose, and on September 15 the U.S. Senate failed to gather enough votes to advance the Clarity Act crypto bill. Both developments cooled appetite for haven assets. Higher real yields make bonds relatively more attractive compared with assets that pay no interest, and the Clarity Act's failure pushed back the prospect of clear U.S. crypto regulation that part of the institutional crowd had been waiting on before adding to positions.
The bank says the weakening of that trade explains why bitcoin ETF inflows pulled back more sharply than gold's. Still, the analysts add that the softer recent demand leaves more room for a rebound if the news flow improves.
Futures positioning climbs for both, but shorts tell a different story
Futures positioning in both gold and bitcoin is running equally high, which JPMorgan says shows institutional investors are backing both assets about as actively at the futures level. That is a meaningful detail: if bitcoin were already losing favor with large players, futures positioning would be growing more slowly, or not at all, and that isn't what the data show.
The real difference shows up in ETFs, not futures. Short interest in IBIT remains one of the highest readings of the year, while short interest in GLD sits below its historical average. That suggests part of the market is still hedging bitcoin positions more aggressively than gold ones.
What the IBIT put-to-call ratio shows
The bank found another signal in the put-to-call open interest ratio. For IBIT, that ratio runs higher than for GLD, which also points to heavier hedging around bitcoin than around gold.
- Inflows: gold fully recovered, bitcoin only partly.
- Futures: positioning is climbing evenly across both assets.
- IBIT short interest remains one of the highest readings of the year.
- IBIT's put-to-call ratio exceeds GLD's.
- Demand for bitcoin ETFs has eased slightly in recent days, per the bank.
Why JPMorgan sees an edge for bitcoin
The combination of elevated short interest and heavier demand for put options is what let the analysts conclude that positioning around bitcoin remains more cautious than around gold, despite the recent inflows.
"While we recognize that other factors might also affect the bitcoin and gold trajectories going forward, from a positioning point of view, the more elevated short interest in the IBIT vs. GLD ETF could create more support for bitcoin vs gold from here if hedging demand is reduced."
- JPMorgan analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, from the bank's report, September 16, 2026
What this means for the market from here
The bank's logic is straightforward: when an asset is heavily hedged, any unwinding of that hedge becomes a source of extra demand on its own, since traders start closing out protective positions. Gold has little of that cushion left; bitcoin still has some. That is why the analysts aren't calling for the bank to buy bitcoin outright, but pointing to a structural edge: all else equal, a market with elevated short interest has more room for a sharp move higher once part of that hedging starts to unwind.
This isn't a price call so much as a description of market structure, and JPMorgan says plainly that other factors will matter too. For retail holders, ETFs remain a tool built for large funds, while the direct route stays simpler: buy the coin outright or exchange Bitcoin for dollars on the open market, without the options and short-interest positioning that drives large institutional players.
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