Comparing Bitcoin spot price & BTCUST shorts, it is often expected that as spot price goes up, shorts should go down; because, why would you short an asset increasing in price.
However, it can be viewed inversely as well. For those holding large amounts of BTC, they could be hedging their spot positions with shorts, therefore as price goes up, they hedge with shorts, and as price goes down, they begin to close shorts LIFO, and open longs to remain delta neutral.
Atleast looking at how the two charts correlate, the above is the best reasoning I can hypothesize.
Examining the chart, the above remains constant at multiple peaks & troughs except for two instances: Our yearly low, and also just after Valentines day where BTC's price went down as shorts went up. Could be many reasons for that, but I'll ignore those 2 instances for now - due to the two charts beginning to correlate once more.
Currently from the bottom, BTC shorts increased aprx. 1000% from the "price floor" and up 30% since beginning this analysis.
Based on findings, this should result in Bitcoin's price appreciating until shorts reach their peak again.
Attached are multiple views of of BTC and also a stand alone chart of BTCUST Shorts, and longs.
Let me know your thoughts.