Crypto ended last week in a split state: ETF buyers kept adding to bitcoin and ether, while derivatives positioning stayed heavily short on both coins. Spot prices cooled off into the weekend as broader market volatility picked up.
What happened to crypto prices last week?
Bitcoin and ether both eased back after briefly clearing $65,000 and $1,900 earlier in the week. Bitcoin slipped from around $63,800 toward $63,130 on Friday morning, while ether eased from $1,863 to near $1,832 over the same stretch. A sixth straight day of US airstrikes on Iran pulled some risk appetite out of crypto along with the rest of the market.
Bitcoin opened Friday, July 17 at $63,788.52 and eased to about $63,130 by mid-morning ET, with ether tracking a similar move from $1,863 down to roughly $1,832. Both coins still held above where they traded earlier in the week.
How much money moved into bitcoin and ether ETFs?
US spot bitcoin ETFs posted solid net inflows to close the week, led by BlackRock's fund, while ether ETFs added a smaller but still positive amount. The bitcoin funds have now strung together four straight sessions of inflows, a reversal from the outflow streaks that dominated most of June.
US spot bitcoin ETFs pulled in $132.3 million in net inflows on July 17, led by BlackRock's IBIT at $136.5 million, while Fidelity's FBTC was the lone fund to see outflows. Spot ether ETFs added $36.7 million over the same session.
Are crypto traders positioned long or short right now?
OpticAlpha's PnL Champions data shows a clear short lean across both majors, with roughly twice as much short exposure as long on bitcoin and ether alike. That bias holds even as ETF buyers keep adding to both coins, a split between spot demand and derivatives positioning worth watching.
Bitcoin longs sit at $247.3 million against $632.5 million in shorts, and ether longs are $381.2 million versus $628.8 million in shorts, per OpticAlpha terminal data. HYPE is the outlier, close to balanced at $330.6 million long versus $348.8 million short, with its Rising Stars cohort showing a similar tilt.
What do fear and greed readings show?
Sentiment gauges across both crypto and equities sat in fear territory over the July 17-19 window. The crypto reading came in at 29, and the stock market version showed a similar mood, both pointing to caution rather than panic.
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index read 29 (fear) over the July 17-19 window, while CNN's stock market Fear & Greed Index read 37, also fear, as of July 17. Both gauges moving the same direction points to caution spreading across asset classes together, not an isolated crypto story.
How does the VIX connect to crypto sentiment?
Equity volatility spiked into the weekend, and that move lines up with the same cautious tone showing up in crypto. A VIX jump of that size alongside two-to-one short positioning in bitcoin and ether suggests one macro anxiety is pricing into multiple risk assets at once, rather than crypto trading on its own separate news.
The Cboe Volatility Index jumped 12.19% to close at 18.77 on July 17, its sharpest one-day move in weeks, as a semiconductor selloff rattled equities the same session.
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