Bitcoin and Ethereum Wobble as US Reports Highest Unemployment Rate Since 2021

Bitcoin and Ethereum dipped and then began rising as the U.S. unemployment rate hit a four-year high of 4.6%, following the release of nonfarm payroll data from both October and November from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading for $87,152 after having lost 0.5% in the past day, according to crypto price aggregator CoinGecko. Bitcoin’s price was recently at its highest point in the last 24 hours after diving to nearly $85,000 on early Monday.

Meanwhile, Ethereum sank below $3,000 late Monday and has yet to recover. ETH was recently changing hands for $2,935 after having lost 3.5% in the past 24 hours.

But the dive hasn’t dashed hopes that Bitcoin will climb back above $100,000 before it falls further. Users on Myriad, a prediction market platform owned by Decrypt parent company Dastan, think there’s a 69% chance Bitcoin gets back to six digits before it drops to $69,000.

Major cryptocurrencies have been up and down Tuesday morning since the release of nonfarm payrolls data from the last two months.

“In November, the unemployment rate, at 4.6%, was little changed from September,” BLS analysts wrote in their new report. “Employment rose in health care and construction in November, while federal government continued to lose jobs.”

The nonfarm jobs numbers were intended to be released last month, but got delayed because federal agencies were playing catch-up after the 43-day U.S. government shutdown that ended on Nov. 12. While the economy added 64,000 jobs in November, it lost 105,000 jobs in October, and both August and September tallies were revised down.

Lee Hardman, a senior currency economist at the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, said the bank still expects to see several rate cuts in 2026. He cited comments made Monday by New York Federal Reserve President John C. Williams, who argued that there have been no broad supply chain bottlenecks, housing inflation has been slowing, and wage growth points to a continued gradual slowing.

“He expects inflation to drop to just under 2.5% next year before falling back to the Fed’s 2.0% goal in 2027,” Hardman wrote in a note Tuesday. “Overall, his comments support our view that the Fed will deliver multiple further rate cuts next year, helping to weaken the U.S. dollar.”

Historically, a weakening U.S. dollar has tended to act as a tailwind for Bitcoin, which traders often treat as an alternative store of value when expectations shift toward easier monetary policy. A softer dollar can also improve global liquidity conditions, making dollar-denominated risk assets, like crypto, more attractive to international investors.