U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs in October, nearly three times the 59,000 economists expected, the Labor Department said Friday, and the bitcoin price briefly pushed above $76,100 before settling near $75,500, Bitcoin Magazine Pro data shows.
The unemployment rate edged down to 4.1% from 4.2%, beating the Dow Jones forecast that called for it to hold. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% on the month and 3.1% over the year, both ahead of estimates, CNBC reported.
Prior months were revised higher as well. August payrolls moved to 186,000, an upward revision of 53,000, and September rose to 60,000 after a 31,000 upgrade, leaving the two-month total 84,000 stronger than first reported.
The print lands on a market still digesting Thursday’s Nasdaq-led rout. The bitcoin price had held near $76,000 into that close, dipped toward $75,200 late in the session, then recovered into the mid-$75,000s overnight before the 8:30 a.m. ET release. Spot bitcoin changed hands around $75,800 after the data, with a market cap of about $1.52 trillion and roughly $48 billion in trading volume over the past day, Yahoo Finance data indicated.
Bitcoin price reaction
Bitcoin price’s first move was a quick spike above $76,100, then a slide toward $75,600 before it settled back near $75,800. The range on the day has run from about $75,240 to $76,280, leaving the market little changed from its pre-release level even as rate futures repriced.
That muted finish fits the pattern after big macro prints. Most of the damage to the bitcoin price this week came from equity risk-off, not from the labor market itself, and a hot payrolls number mainly reinforces the path the Fed was already pricing.
CME FedWatch odds put roughly a 79% chance of a 25-basis-point hike at the Dec. 9 meeting after the release, up from about 70% into the open. The next employment report is due Dec. 4, five days before that decision, and the signal points the same way the last Fed hold did: stronger hiring and firmer wages leave less room for another pause.
Tech rout aftermath and ETF outflows
Thursday’s session still sets the floor under the bitcoin price. The Nasdaq Composite fell about 5.5% and dropped into correction territory, more than 10% below its recent high, while the S&P 500 lost about 4.4% and the Dow shed roughly 1,800 points, or 3.4%, CNBC reported.
The Magnificent Seven erased more than $1 trillion in market value. Nvidia alone lost more than 9%, wiping out roughly $440 billion in capitalization, as investors priced in a slower AI data-center buildout after the Democratic midterm sweep.
Bitcoin has traded with that AI-heavy complex for most of the year, so a correction in the Nasdaq has pulled the bitcoin price lower even when on-chain flows looked steady. Miners that leased power and floor space to AI tenants are caught in both trades.
Fund flows followed the risk-off tape. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs posted $430.2 million in net outflows on Thursday, led by about $200 million from Fidelity’s FBTC and roughly $105 million from BlackRock’s IBIT, bringing week-to-date redemptions through Thursday to about $870 million.
Leverage kept the bitcoin price soft into the overnight. More than $1 billion in crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours, mostly long bets built during Wednesday’s short-squeeze bounce that lifted bitcoin near $80,000.
What comes next for bitcoin price
Professional and business services led October hiring with 70,000 jobs, health care added 42,000, and transportation and warehousing gained 25,000. Manufacturing rose 19,000. The breadth undercuts the recent pattern in which health care carried most of the gains.
Policy risk has not eased either. House Democrats are already drafting their own market structure bill ahead of taking the committees in January, a backdrop that has hung over crypto equities since the midterm results first hit the bitcoin price.
Traders are watching whether the bitcoin price can defend the mid-$75,000 zone that held on election night and several times since August. A clean break would leave September’s low back in sight after a week that erased most of the post-election squeeze, now with a hotter labor market and firmer hike odds stacked on top.
At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is near $75,500.