Yes lets say you own 1 bitcoin and dont want to sell it for tax purposes, but believe the price will go down from 50 to 20 then you can take a short against bitcoin and as it's going down you make money and dont have to sell your bitcoin and end up neutral in the end to not lose value on that bitcoin with the new earned funds
Pretty much something like that. And you don't necessarily need to think that prices will go down; people do shorts just in case it goes down regardless of personal market sentiment. It just makes huge market movements(regardless of direction) have a lot less dramatic effect to your portfolio value.
anyone hedging now? apreciate input!
I personally don't as I don't mind huge swings with my personal net worth. I just make sure I have enough fiat to get by for years, and the rest is invested through spot.