August Payrolls Knock Bitcoin Off $81,000

Bitcoin fell $1,430 in the five minutes after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 162,000 August jobs, five times the average of the prior year. Polymarket traders moved a quarter-point September rate increase from 39.5 cents to the majority outcome inside 15 minutes.

Bitcoin broke a range it had held through the Asian and European sessions when the August employment report landed at 8:30 a.m. ET on Friday, and has spent the U.S. session clawing back part of the drop. Every large token except the privacy coins is lower.

The print reopened a rate decision that Fed governor Christopher Waller appeared to close a day earlier. Waller told a Reuters interview on Thursday that he was inclined to hold, and said he expected the August employment data to stay in line with recent trends. It did not. The Federal Open Market Committee meets Sept. 15-16 with a fresh dot plot attached, and August inflation lands four days before that.

Bitcoin last changed hands at $79,810, down 2.1% over 24 hours and up 2.2% over seven days, after trading between $78,706 and $82,108, CoinGecko data shows. Ether was at $2,457, down 2.2% on the day and up 0.3% on the week. XRP fell 4.5% to $1.40, Solana 3.3% to $101.92 and BNB 0.4% to $721.19. Total crypto market value stood at $2.70 trillion on $107 billion of volume, with bitcoin dominance at 59.2%.