Bitcoin Price Leaps Over $61k Following US Unemployment Data – Decrypt

Bitcoin leaped over $61,000 in the hour that followed the release of a government employment report.

At time of publication, the price of Bitcoin is around $61,640, up 5.2% on the day, according to data from CoinGecko.

Bitcoin’s price surge followed the U.S. government’s Nonfarm Payrolls report, published this morning, which forecasted that the unemployment rate for April was 3.9%—that’s 0.1% higher than the 3.8% expected.

High unemployment makes it more likely that the Fed will consider lowering interest rates, increasing the attractiveness of risk assets like stocks and crypto.

The Fed lowered rates to between zero to 0.25% in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. But two years later, in March 2022, the Fed began hiking rates to fight inflation. The hikes continued until they peaked at 5.25% to 5.50% in July 2023. Bitcoin ended that month at $29,230.11, down 4.1% for the month and half the price it is now.

It’s been a rocky week for Bitcoin. Since the Hong Kong Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs went live, on April 30, Bitcoin’s price tumbled, first  to below $60,000 and eventually slipping below $57,000.This led Bitcoin billionaire Arthur Hayes to predict that Bitcoin’s price has bottomed out. In a blog post, the former BitMEX CEO predicted that prices would “bottom, chop, and begin a slow grind higher.”

Bitcoin ETFs have been taking a hit with a weekly outflow of $599 million, according to CoinShares. The U.S. in particular took a huge hit of $860 million outflowing, with BlackRock’s IBIT fund taking its first daily loss yesterday. Hong Kong’s ETFs were a bright spot, though, flowing in nearly $300 million in its first week.

Ethereum has seen similar gains, since the publication of the Nonfarm Payroll report, climbing 2.8% to around $3,050. Over the same period Solana jumped 4.4% to around $142, amid a crazy week for meme coins on the blockchain.