Bond Fund That Changed Its Ticker to BTC Is Now Switching Back

Sam Potter, Bloomberg News

Free Bitcoin pocket information guides sit on a table at the BTC.com marketing stand at the Lisbon Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. Portugal is hoping to bolster its reputation as a startup hub in Europe at a time when political instability in Spain’s Catalonia and the U.K.’s decision to exit the European Union are triggering growing interest in the southern European country. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- A tiny exchange-traded fund that raised eyebrows last month when it changed its ticker to BTC -- the three-letter shorthand almost everybody in crypto uses for Bitcoin -- is reversing the move.

The ClearShares Piton Intermediate Fixed Income ETF will revert to the ticker PIFI from May 11, the fund’s issuer said in a brief filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. No explanation was given for the move.

The fund’s initial change to BTC in April stirred speculation ClearShares was moving to secure the ticker for an eventual Bitcoin ETF, as multiple firms race to get SEC approval for the first such product.

That theory gained traction when Grayscale Investments LLC, the company behind the world’s biggest cryptocurrency trust, said it was taking a stake in ClearShares. Days earlier the firm had announced it was “100% committed” to converting the $31 billion Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an ETF.

The SEC punted on its eagerly-waited verdict late last month, pushing the decision on whether to approve a Bitcoin product to June 17.

Read more: SEC Punts Long-Awaited Bitcoin ETF Decision to at Least June

Ticker confusion among investors is nothing new, and seems to have intensified as retail traders play an ever-greater role in the stock market. For instance, the popularity of Zoom Video Communications Inc. sparked brief surges in the shares of Zoom Technologies Inc., after traders confused its ticker symbol ZOOM with that of the video-conferencing company.

New York-based 5G Edge Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, filed last month to go public under the symbol ARK, strikingly similar to the tickers for Cathie Wood’s line-up of popular ETFs.

Assets in the Piton Intermediate Fixed Income ETF have almost doubled to $62 million since the BTC switch, with all of the new inflow coming in a single day shortly after the symbol change.

Spokespersons for Grayscale and ClearShares didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.