What's on the economic calendar for the week of August 3?
The week opens with ISM Manufacturing PMI on Monday morning, followed by ADP payrolls and ISM Services on Wednesday. It closes with the July jobs report on Friday at 8:30 AM ET, the first full employment read since the Fed's hawkish hold. Monday also brings a dense earnings slate, including Palantir, Costco, McDonald's, Kraft Heinz and ON Semiconductor, arriving after roughly 300 S&P 500 companies beat estimates this earnings season.
The ISM Manufacturing report and the ISM Services report both post at 10:00 AM ET on their respective days. The July jobs report comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at 8:30 AM ET Friday, and it lands into a market that just repriced the Fed's next move.
Why does the Fed's hawkish dissent matter for risk assets this week?
The FOMC held rates at 3.50% to 3.75% on July 29 by a 9-3 vote, with three regional presidents dissenting in favor of raising rates immediately rather than holding. That is the most hawkish dissent count in nearly a decade. CME FedWatch now prices a 68% probability of a 25 basis point hike at the September 16 meeting, up from close to a coin flip two weeks earlier.
The FOMC statement confirmed the hold and the dissent count. CME FedWatch data shows prediction markets have not fully caught up to that repricing: Kalshi prices a September hike at 53% versus 44% for a hold, and Polymarket is close behind at 52% to 46%, both less convinced than the futures-implied probability. Risk assets, crypto included, head into next week's data pricing a meaningfully different Fed path than they were two weeks ago.
What happened to Bitcoin ETF flows this week?
Spot Bitcoin ETFs posted a $265 million net outflow on Friday, July 31, snapping a two-day inflow streak. BlackRock's IBIT led redemptions, followed by Fidelity's FBTC and Grayscale's GBTC. Spot Ether ETFs moved the opposite direction, pulling in roughly $9 million the same day. The split marks a real divergence in how allocators are treating the two largest crypto assets right now.
The $265.37 million single-day outflow, confirmed by Farside Investors, was led by BlackRock's IBIT at $122.7 million, with Fidelity's FBTC ($54.8 million) and Grayscale's GBTC ($52.6 million) rounding out the largest redemptions. Ether ETFs took in about $9 million the same day, part of a month that closed out four straight weeks of net inflows for the category.
Why did mega wallets turn bearish?
OpticAlpha's wallet-tracking terminal shows large holders, defined as wallets over $5 million, running a sentiment bias of negative 0.54. Short exposure among this cohort reached $2.39 billion against $1.68 billion in long exposure, the first time shorts have outweighed longs by this margin in recent weeks. Large wallets tend to move ahead of retail, so a defensive tilt here often shows up in price before it shows up in headlines.
This is OpticAlpha's own positioning read, drawn from wallet-level tracking rather than a public exchange feed. It is a sentiment gauge, not a signal to act on by itself, but it lines up directly with the ETF outflow above.
What do the liquidations say about current leverage?
Bitcoin liquidations totaled $2.17 million over the period, with longs accounting for $2.13 million of that and shorts just $37,800. Ether liquidations reached $2.85 million, again dominated by longs at $2.73 million versus $124,300 in short liquidations. Long-liquidation dominance like this usually means price moved down hard enough to force leveraged buyers out, not a short squeeze pushing price up.
That lines up with the ETF outflows and the bearish wallet tilt above. Three separate reads, ETF flow, wallet positioning and liquidation mix, pointing the same direction rather than one noisy data point in isolation.
Where does broader market sentiment stand right now?
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index sits at 27, in Fear territory, though it has ticked up two points off its recent low. The VIX, Wall Street's own volatility gauge, closed Friday at 15.99, down 6.44% on the day. Crypto sentiment is running more stressed than equity sentiment right now, a gap that tends to close in one direction or the other rather than sit still.
The Fear and Greed reading is Alternative.me's composite of volatility, momentum, social volume, dominance and search trends. The VIX close came via Cboe, the last print before markets shut for the weekend.
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