Bitcoin Jumps to $65.3K as Weak US Jobs Data Cools Rate Fears

Bitcoin surged to its highest level of August, touching $65,340 on Friday. The reason? Surprisingly weak US jobs data made investors more hopeful about the future.

Here's what happened. The US government released its nonfarm payrolls report (a monthly count of how many jobs the economy added or lost, not including farm workers). The numbers were disappointing:

• The US economy lost 23,000 jobs in July
• The unemployment rate stood at 4.1%
• Earlier months were revised down too — May and June combined had 103,000 fewer jobs than first reported

Why would bad job news push Bitcoin *up*? It comes down to the Federal Reserve (the Fed — America's central bank, which controls interest rates). When the economy looks weak, the Fed is less likely to raise interest rates.

Higher interest rates make borrowing money more expensive, which tends to hurt "risky" investments like Bitcoin and stocks. Lower or steady rates usually help them. So weak jobs data = less pressure to raise rates = good news for risky assets.

The shift was clear in the markets:

• The S&P 500 (an index tracking 500 big US companies) opened 0.5% higher
• The Nasdaq (a tech-heavy stock index) rose over 1%
• Bitcoin climbed 1.3% on the day

According to the CME FedWatch Tool (which tracks what traders expect the Fed to do), investors now believe the Fed will hold rates steady at its September meeting. Just a day earlier, most had expected a small rate hike.

Still, experts urge caution. Trading firm QCP Capital called the bigger picture "uncertain" for Bitcoin, saying recent price moves showed "resilience rather than clear directional confirmation." In other words, Bitcoin is holding up — but nobody knows which way it will go next.

The takeaway: Bitcoin rose because weak jobs data reduced the chance of higher interest rates. But analysts remain divided on where prices head from here.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://cointelegraph.com/markets/bitcoin-price-tags-653k-august-high-as-low-us-jobs-numbers-cool-fed-rate-bets?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound