Bitcoin jumps 4% to $61,470 as soft jobs data revives rate-cut bets

Whales moved 49,000 BTC onto exchanges in a single day — the kind of on-chain signal that has preceded every major selloff this year — yet Bitcoin rallied anyway.

Bitcoin rose 4.1% to $61,470 as of 14:30 UTC Thursday, recovering from a 24-hour low of $59,520 after the U.S. added just 57,000 jobs in June, well below the 110,000 consensus estimate. The miss sent the 10-year Treasury yield down four basis points to 4.46% and pushed fed funds futures to price out the prospect of a July rate hike. Trading volume reached $32.49 billion over 24 hours, with Bitcoin's market cap at $1.23 trillion.

"The recent labor market stabilization showed its first signs of cooling, which will continue," Quinn Thompson, CIO at Leeker Capital, said. "Rate hikes are not happening."

The rally came despite a CryptoQuant report showing Bitcoin exchange inflows hit 49,000 BTC on June 30, a reading seen only four other times in 2026. Ethereum inflows surpassed 1.25 million ETH the same week, while altcoin deposit transactions reached nearly 45,000 a day — the highest in two months. The average deposit size doubled from 1 BTC to 2 BTC, suggesting whales and institutions were deliberately repositioning coins onto exchanges, according to CryptoQuant analyst Julio Moreno.

The divergence between on-chain signals and price action tells a clear story: macro is driving this market, not exchange flows. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh told the ECB forum in Sintra that inflation risks had eased, his first notably softer comment since the hawkish June dot plot triggered weeks of ETF outflows. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have bled billions across a double-digit streak of outflow sessions, while Strategy trimmed its stack and Mt. Gox moved 10,422 BTC last month, reviving creditor-selling anxiety ahead of the October repayment deadline.

Macro tail wags the on-chain dog

Bitcoin's June bleed — a 19% monthly decline against a historical average gain of 5.9% — had less to do with crypto-native factors than with capital rotating out of digital assets and into the semiconductor trade. That rotation showed signs of reversing Thursday as South Korea's Kospi slid 7.9% on renewed AI chip worries, with Samsung and SK Hynix shedding a combined $290 billion in market value. Goldman Sachs' U.S. High Beta Momo stocks basket posted a two-day loss exceeding 23%, the worst since the 2020 Covid selloff.

Bitcoin's open interest has slumped to $21.6 billion from a May 30 peak of $31.3 billion, while the exchange whale ratio pushed to a local high near 0.69 — a level that preceded a 6.3% dip in June. Binance saw over $2 billion in net outflows over the past seven days, and retail inflows of less than 1 BTC on the exchange fell to a monthly average of 329 BTC per day, the lowest in its history, according to CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost.

The $60,000 level remains the battleground. Thursday's bounce bought room above that line, though one strong session does not undo a losing first half. Friday brings the next test, with revised jobs data and any follow-through from Warsh's comments set to determine whether Bitcoin can hold its gains into next week.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.