Bitcoin bucks the fear as rate bets reset markets

Welcome to your BTC Markets VIP Desk briefing.

Time to read: ~8 minutes

The week in 60 seconds

• A weak July jobs report cooled bets on a near-term Fed rate hike, sending equities to record closes and Bitcoin higher, even as long-end bond yields kept climbing.
• Bitcoin is holding its ground near US$65,000 (A$92,000) while sentiment still reads “Fear,” a gap between price and mood that we explore in this week’s Signal chart.
• Oil slid roughly 8% for the week on hopes of a Strait of Hormuz resolution, easing some of the inflation pressure that had weighed on markets.
• The week ahead turns on Wednesday’s CPI and Tuesday’s RBA decision, both likely to influence expectations heading into the Fed’s September meeting.
• Story of the week: the Welsh landfill tied to one of crypto’s most famous lost fortunes is nearing the end of its life, closing the book on a decade-long recovery bid.

Intro

This week’s story is a labour market surprise that flipped the mood across every asset class we watch. A much weaker-than-expected US jobs report cut the odds of a further Fed rate hike, lifting equities, gold and Bitcoin together, though long-end bond yields kept rising, a divergence worth watching. Below, you’ll find where every major market sits today, what’s driving it, and what Wednesday’s US inflation print and Tuesday’s RBA decision mean for the fortnight ahead.

Significant events 

A weak jobs report reset rate expectations, long bonds are behaving oddly, and oil’s slide is doing the Fed’s disinflation work for it.

Weak jobs report resets rate expectations

US jobs fell in July against a forecast for solid gains, and that single miss pushed the odds of a further Fed rate hike well below where they stood a week earlier, sending equities to record closes, gold to a two-month high, and Bitcoin towards US$65,000 (A$92,000). Wednesday’s CPI now carries outsized weight: a hot print would unwind much of this relief in a single session.

Long bonds aren’t following the Fed story

Not every market got the memo. Long-dated US Treasury yields rose through the week even as short-term rate fears cooled, an unusual split that points to investors demanding more compensation for holding duration, not a shift in growth or inflation expectations. If it persists, it becomes a headwind for risk assets regardless of what the Fed does with short-term rates.

Oil’s slide is doing some of the Fed’s work

Oil’s near 8% slide this week, on hopes of a Strait of Hormuz resolution, is quietly doing the Fed’s work for it: energy costs feed straight into headline CPI, so a sustained pullback gives room to look past one soft jobs report without a fresh inflation impulse. The move matters more for Wednesday’s CPI than for energy markets themselves and could unwind fast on any new Hormuz headline.

By the Numbers

The Week in Data

−23,000: US non-farm payrolls fell in July against a forecast 80,000 gain, the miss that reset this week’s rate-hike odds.

Source: Reuters/US Bureau of Labor Statistics

5.26%: The 30-year US Treasury yield touched this level during the week, its highest since 2007, before easing as oil prices fell.

Source: CNBC/Trading Economics

US$754m (A$1.06bn): Net weekly inflow into US spot Bitcoin ETFs, the second-largest weekly inflow of 2026, signalling a sharp rebound after months of weaker flows.

Source: The Coin Republic/CryptoRank

US$73.3bn (A$103.35bn): USDC’s circulating supply, after on-chain transaction volume rose 151% year-on-year, a sign stablecoins are being used, not just held.

Source: Circle Q2 2026 Results

Market snapshot

The Fear & Greed Index reads 30 (Fear), but the more interesting story is the gap between that reading and a market holding near recent highs. Bitcoin is trading around US$65,000 (approximately A$92,000), Ethereum around US$1,910 (approximately A$2,700), and XRP around US$1.03 (approximately A$1.46). Total crypto market capitalisation sits around US$2.19 trillion (A$3.09 trillion).

The more telling signal sits in the futures market. Bitcoin’s rolling three-month annualised futures basis is yielding around 3%, below the two-year US Treasury yield of around 3.8%. The basis has remained below the Treasury yield for more than five months, with the current stretch now the second of its length on record. The only comparable period ran from August 2022 to January 2023, ending at the cycle low. In plain terms, the futures market is currently paying less to hold a leveraged Bitcoin position than an investor earns in government paper. That’s a read on positioning, not a prediction, but it helps explain why this week’s price strength hasn’t translated into froth.

The Scorecard

Growth-sensitive assets led, oil and XRP lagged, and Treasuries sat almost dead flat in between.

Sources: CoinGecko, TradingView, Yahoo Finance, Glassnode via CoinDesk.

The Signal

Sentiment hasn’t caught up with price, and that gap is more revealing than the Scorecard’s weekly percentages.

Crypto Fear & Greed Index (90-day trend)

Alternative.me’s daily Fear & Greed reading remains in “Fear” territory at 30, even as Bitcoin trades near recent highs. Sentiment has lagged price for several weeks running.

Why it matters this week: This divergence between a fearful sentiment reading and a market trading near recent highs lines up with the soft futures basis noted in Market Sentiment above, both consistent with more cautious positioning than the price action alone would suggest.

Source: http://alternative.me/

Economic calendar

TL;DR: Tuesday’s RBA decision and Wednesday’s US CPI are the two events that can move every market in this email.

11 August: RBA cash rate decision + Bullock press conference

All four major Australian banks now expect a hold at 4.35% after soft Q2 inflation. Any surprise here moves AUD/USD directly, which feeds this fortnight’s Scorecard.

12 August: US CPI (July data)

The week’s key print. A hotter-than-expected number would unwind much of this week’s rate-cut relief across equities, gold and crypto in a single session.

13 August: US PPI (July data)

Read alongside CPI for confirmation of whether disinflation is broadening or narrowing to just a handful of categories.

14 August: US retail sales & University of Michigan sentiment

A gauge of whether the softer jobs picture is yet showing up in consumer spending, relevant to how far this week’s relief rally can extend.

14 August: Weekly Deribit BTC/ETH options expiry

Routine weekly expiry; no unusual size flagged at time of writing. The next monthly expiry, typically larger, falls 28 August.

From the Desk

One data point flipped the week’s mood, but the bond market isn’t fully on board with the relief.

One soft jobs report shouldn’t move every asset class at once, yet that’s roughly what happened this week. The scale of the reaction says more about how stretched rate-hike positioning had become than about the health of the US labour market. What we’re watching now is whether the bond market’s unusual behaviour continues: long yields rising while equities, gold and Bitcoin rally isn’t the usual playbook, and a persistent rise in term premium raises the cost of capital across risk assets, regardless of what the Fed does with short rates.

Wednesday’s CPI and Thursday’s PPI will show whether this week marks a genuine shift or a single adjustment.

Question of the Week

Q: Gold hit a two-month high and equities hit record closes in the same week. Aren’t those supposed to move in opposite directions?

A: Not always. This week, both moved together because the same trigger, cooling Fed rate-hike odds after the weak jobs report, supported both. Lower expected rates reduce the opportunity cost of holding gold while also supporting equity valuations.

The inverse relationship is more common during a growth scare, when equities tend to weaken while gold benefits. This week’s pattern says more about the market’s read on the Fed than a shift in the growth outlook.

Have a question you’d like the desk to answer next fortnight? Reply to this email and we’ll feature it in the next edition.

Story of the week

A landfill in Wales is quietly closing the door on one of crypto’s most famous cautionary tales.

In 2013, an IT worker in Newport, Wales, threw out a hard drive containing the private keys to 8,000 Bitcoin, mined years earlier for next to nothing. That hard drive, buried somewhere under a decade of household rubbish, is worth an estimated US$700–800 million at today’s prices. He spent more than ten years trying to get it back, including legal action against the local council and an offer to buy the landfill outright. A UK court ultimately ruled the council owns the physical drive, even though he retains legal ownership of the Bitcoin itself.

The council has confirmed the site is approaching the end of its operational life and is scheduled to close and be capped within the next couple of years. Once that happens, any realistic chance of recovery becomes even more remote. It’s a story that’s been running for over a decade, but it lands differently with the physical site itself nearing closure. For anyone who’s ever been lazy about backing up a seed phrase, it’s an expensive reminder of why that matters.

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Paul Stonham at Intersekt 2026

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