Friday's Jobs Report Didn't Move the Needle on Fed Rate Hike Bets

The April jobs report landed Friday and didn't do much to the Fed rate hike conversation. Markets had already been pricing in a slightly higher chance of a hike before the print, and the data didn't push that probability meaningfully higher.

Bitcoin, which had been nursing losses all week, sat tight around $79,000 over the weekend, according to CoinDesk's live coverage. That's the short version of a week where a lot of things pulled in different directions and nothing broke.

The rate hike odds are climbing, but slowly

Hedge fund Capital B's point is that the jobs data didn't change the math much. The labor market is still tight enough to keep the Fed cautious, but not hot enough to force their hand this month.

Capital B bought $29 million in bitcoin after closing a raise, its biggest BTC purchase in a year, The Block reported. That's not a macro call. That's a balance-sheet call, deploying fresh capital into an asset the fund clearly thinks is undervalued at these levels.

Bitcoin's broader problem this week was a flush. CryptoBriefing reported the network just went through its sharpest deleveraging since 2023, which is a fancy way of saying a lot of traders got liquidated and a lot of leveraged positions got wiped out.

That kind of forced selling pushes prices down faster than fundamentals justify, and it often sets up a bounce when the dust settles. Traders are already piling back in, the report noted, which is a polite way of saying the crowd that got stopped out is trying to get back in at slightly better prices.

The $80,000 wall is the real test

Bitcoin has been fighting to hold $80,000 for weeks and keeps getting rejected, AmbCrypto reported. The level matters because it's where a lot of traders have placed stop-losses and profit targets. Every time BTC approaches it, selling pressure picks up and it gets pushed back.

The macro backdrop, with rate hike uncertainty hanging over risk assets, makes the ceiling harder to crack. The sharpest deleveraging event since 2023 suggests that the weak hands have already been flushed out, CryptoBriefing noted, which normally makes the next push through resistance easier.

But the macro calendar this week is packed, and any hint of sticky inflation could send risk appetite back the other direction.

The Coldcard exploit and the CLARITY Act

On the security side, the Coldcard hardware wallet exploiter moved 45% of the funds stolen in the "Wave 3" attacks, Galaxy's on-chain analysts reported. The movement of stolen funds is always worth watching because it often signals the exploiter is preparing to launder or sell, which can put short-term pressure on the token involved.

The remaining 55% of the stolen funds hasn't moved yet, which could mean the attacker is waiting for lower attention or testing cashout routes. On the policy side, the CLARITY Act is gaining attention as a potential catalyst for bitcoin-related employment.

CoinTelegraph reported the legislation could draw a clearer line between which digital assets count as securities and which don't. That clarity matters because banks and brokerages have been hesitant to build bitcoin products without knowing whether regulators will classify them as dealing in securities.

If the act passes, firms like Coinbase and traditional banks would have a green light to hire teams specifically for bitcoin custody and trading desks.

What comes next

The concrete number to watch is $80,000. Bitcoin needs to close above it convincingly, ideally on volume, to signal the deleveraging bounce has real legs. Below $76,000, the post-flush recovery stalls and the bearish case gets louder.

The next Fed decision is the macro event that will resolve the rate hike question one way or another, and until then, BTC is range-bound between those two levels. Capital B's $29 million purchase is a signal that institutional demand is still there even when prices are messy.

Whether that's enough to push through the $80,000 ceiling this week depends on what the macro calendar delivers.