The latest US employment data shows an interesting phenomenon. The unemployment rate indeed dropped from 4.6% to 4.4%, which looks good at first glance, but a closer look reveals issues—the labor force participation rate has shown little improvement, and wage growth has gently declined from higher levels to 3.7%. Once this data was released, market reactions were very straightforward: the previous bets on the Fed cutting interest rates in January almost vanished, and the probability of a rate cut in March was significantly reduced.

Interestingly, US stocks and gold moved counter to the trend and rose, while the US dollar index remained strong. The underlying logic is actually not complicated—companies are becoming especially cautious in their hiring, and employment pressure in the real economy has clearly increased. This is the real reason behind the weaker data. Faced with this situation, the Federal Reserve is expected to adopt a more cautious policy stance and is unlikely to take aggressive actions in the short term.

For cryptocurrency market participants, the key focus moving forward should be on the subsequent developments of inflation and employment data. Changes in the macro policy environment often directly influence risk appetite, and Bitcoin, as a risk asset, is naturally affected by this.