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.

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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.

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