BTC fell below $62,000 on Friday after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 172,000 nonfarm payrolls for May — more than double the consensus estimate of 85,000 — and revised April’s figure up to 179,000, according to Trading Economics. The data eliminated the last credible near-term argument for a Federal Reserve rate cut in 2026.
Derivatives markets repriced immediately. Odds of a December rate hike jumped to 61% from 45% within an hour of the release, per investinglive. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed 4 basis points, and the dollar index ticked higher. Job gains were concentrated in leisure and hospitality (+70,000), local government (+55,000), and health care (+35,000), pointing to broad-based labor resilience rather than a narrowly driven number.
For crypto, the report compounds an already difficult macro setup. U.S. spot BTC ETFs have now recorded 11 consecutive sessions of net outflows totaling over $4.2 billion, and ETH spot products have shed roughly $2.6 billion since May 11, according to Farside Investors. Analysts at Presto Research noted this year’s pattern: BTC drawdowns have consistently coincided with rallies in AI and gold as markets scale back Fed easing expectations — a dynamic that Friday’s jobs print reinforces.
Bitcoin opened the day at $63,812 and continued lower through the morning session. The broader crypto market cap fell 6.26% to approximately $2.17 trillion over the two-day stretch, per CoinMarketCap. Derivatives show no signs of trend reversal: put skews remain elevated on both BTC and ETH, and the $60,000 strike put on Deribit carries over $1 billion in notional open interest.
The next scheduled macro catalyst is the FOMC meeting and CPI release, which will determine whether the rate-hike repricing triggered by today’s data represents a lasting shift or a temporary overreaction.
