The U.S. Labor Department reported that employers added 165,000 jobs in October, significantly surpassing economists' expectations of 59,000. This strong jobs report pushed the bitcoin price briefly above $76,100 before settling near $75,500, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data.
The unemployment rate dropped to 4.1% from 4.2%, and average hourly earnings rose 0.4% on the month and 3.1% over the year, both exceeding estimates. Prior months' payrolls were also revised higher, with August seeing an upward revision of 53,000 jobs and September gaining 31,000 more.
Despite the positive jobs data, the bitcoin price reaction was muted, ranging from $75,240 to $76,280. The market cap stood at about $1.52 trillion with roughly $48 billion in trading volume over the past day. The report reinforced expectations of a 25-basis-point rate hike by the Federal Reserve at its December 9 meeting, with CME FedWatch odds rising to 79% from 70%.
Thursday’s tech rout, which saw the Nasdaq Composite fall about 5.5% and the S&P 500 lose 4.4%, also impacted bitcoin. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs posted $430.2 million in net outflows, led by Fidelity’s FBTC and BlackRock’s IBIT. Over $1 billion in crypto positions were liquidated, mostly long bets built during Wednesday’s short-squeeze bounce.