Bitcoin held near $75,000 on Friday as a much stronger-than-expected October jobs report lifted Federal Reserve rate-hike expectations, with U.S. payroll growth landing at nearly triple the consensus forecast.

The Labor Department said Friday that U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs in October, versus the 59,000 increase economists had expected. The bitcoin price briefly pushed above $76,100 on the release before settling near $75,500, Bitcoin Magazine Pro data shows.

The unemployment rate edged down to 4.1% from 4.2%, beating the Dow Jones consensus, which had called for the rate to hold steady. Average hourly earnings climbed 0.4% on the month and 3.1% from a year earlier, both ahead of estimates, CNBC reported.

Prior months were revised higher as well. August payrolls were restated at 186,000, an upward revision of 53,000, while September rose to 60,000 after a 31,000 upgrade, leaving the two-month total 84,000 stronger than first reported.

The data landed on a market still absorbing Thursday's Nasdaq-led rout. Bitcoin had held near $76,000 into that close, slipped toward $75,200 late in the session, then recovered into the mid-$75,000s overnight ahead of the 8:30 a.m. ET release. Spot bitcoin changed hands around $75,800 after the figures, with a market capitalization of about $1.52 trillion and roughly $48 billion in trading volume over the past day, Yahoo Finance data indicated.

Bitcoin's Reaction to the Payrolls Print

Bitcoin's first move was a quick spike above $76,100, followed by a slide toward $75,600 before it settled back near $75,800. The range on the day has run from about $75,240 to $76,280, leaving the market little changed from its pre-release level even as rate futures repriced.

That muted finish fits the pattern seen after major macro prints. Most of the damage to bitcoin this week came from equity risk-off rather than the labor market itself, and a hot payrolls number mainly reinforces the policy path the Fed was already pricing.

CME FedWatch odds, derived from pricing in fed funds futures, put roughly a 79% chance of a 25-basis-point hike at the Federal Reserve's Dec. 9 meeting after the release, up from about 70% heading into the open. The next employment report is due Dec. 4, five days before that decision, and the signal points the same way the last Fed hold did: stronger hiring and firmer wages leave less room for another pause.

Tech Rout Aftermath and ETF Outflows

Thursday's session still sets the floor under the price. The Nasdaq Composite fell about 5.5% and dropped into correction territory, more than 10% below its recent high, while the S&P 500 lost about 4.4% and the Dow shed roughly 1,800 points, or 3.4%, CNBC reported.

The Magnificent Seven — the mega-cap tech cohort of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla — erased more than $1 trillion in market value. Nvidia alone lost more than 9%, wiping out roughly $440 billion in capitalization, as investors priced in a slower AI data-center buildout after the Democratic midterm sweep.

Bitcoin has traded with that AI-heavy complex for most of the year, so a correction in the Nasdaq has pulled the price lower even when on-chain flows looked steady. Miners that leased power and floor space to AI tenants are caught in both trades.

Fund flows followed the risk-off tape. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs — funds that hold bitcoin directly and whose daily flows are widely tracked as a gauge of institutional demand — posted $430.2 million in net outflows on Thursday, led by about $200 million from Fidelity's FBTC and roughly $105 million from BlackRock's IBIT, bringing week-to-date redemptions through Thursday to about $870 million.

Leverage kept the price soft into the overnight session. More than $1 billion in crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours — forced closures of leveraged trades once margin falls short — mostly long bets built during Wednesday's short-squeeze bounce that lifted bitcoin near $80,000.

What Comes Next for Bitcoin

Professional and business services led October hiring with 70,000 jobs, health care added 42,000, and transportation and warehousing gained 25,000. Manufacturing rose 19,000. The breadth undercuts the recent pattern in which health care carried most of the gains.

Policy risk has not eased either. House Democrats are already drafting their own market structure bill ahead of taking the committees in January, a backdrop that has hung over crypto equities since the midterm results first hit the price.

Traders are watching whether bitcoin can defend the mid-$75,000 zone that held on election night and several times since August. A clean break would leave September's low back in sight after a week that erased most of the post-election squeeze, now with a hotter labor market and firmer hike odds stacked on top.

At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is near $75,500.

This post first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and was written by Micah Zimmerman.