BTC holding in tight range as markets brace for January employment data

Following the usual recent pattern, crypto markets fell sharply as U.S. stocks opened for trade Tuesday, but recovered most of those losses in a similarly quick fashion.

In mid-morning trade, bitcoin BTC$68,747.00 was at $69,200, down marginally from 24 hours ago. Ether ETH$2,000.64 underperformed, down 1.8%, with similar declines in XRP XRP$1.4234 and Solana SOL$84.59.

While bitcoin’s current drawdown is the most significant since the 2024 halving, trading volume stayed low during the decline, suggesting retail investors stepped back rather than rushed to sell, according to Kaiko.

The “market [is now] approaching critical technical support levels that will determine whether the four-year cycle framework remains intact,” Kaiko research analyst Laurens Fraussen wrote in a report Tuesday.

Trading firm Wintermute expects bitcoin to remain in the current range as it’s still in price discovery.

Recent bitcoin moves have been driven by leveraged derivatives rather than spot demand, the firm said, with light spot volumes leaving prices sensitive to crowded positions. Wintermute pointed to last Friday’s rebound as a short squeeze in perpetual futures and said the return of volatility caught investors off guard after a period of complacency.

January jobs report on tap

Originally scheduled for last Friday, the government’s January Nonfarm Payrolls Report is now coming out on Wednesday morning due to the brief federal shutdown last month.

Economist forecasts are for 70,000 jobs to have been added, up from 50,000 in December. The unemployment rate is expected to remain at 4.4%.

White House trade counselor Peter Navarro, however, said in a Fox interview Tuesday that expectations need to be significantly revised lower. His comments follow those of White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett, who advised markets not to panic on weak jobs data.

Those remarks appear to have been noted by the bond market, where the 10-year Treasury yield is lower by 5 basis points to 4.14%. Lower interest rates and easier Federal Reserve monetary policy are typically assumed to be good for assets like bitcoin, but it hasn’t been the case this cycle, with bitcoin plunging even as the Fed has trimmed rates by 75 basis points in recent months.