(Kitco News) – The cryptocurrency market shook off the downtrend it had been in since Tuesday as Friday saw Bitcoin (BTC) rebound from sub-$60,000 territory and regain support at $62,000 to close the work week.
The move higher came as the latest jobs report in the U.S. showed a cooling labor market, with the number of jobs added in April coming in 65,000 below expectations.
“The U.S. labor market underperformed in April, with a rise in the unemployment rate and a dip in job additions, suggesting a potential slowdown in the robust job growth trajectory,” said analysts at Secure Digital Markets. “This development could prompt the Federal Reserve to reconsider its stance on interest rate cuts. Bitcoin, which has been restrained by a declining trend line since early April, could see bullish implications if it breaches the $64,000 mark.”
“Stock futures have seen a significant uptick following Friday's jobs report, which investors believe could lead to a more dovish Federal Reserve, potentially initiating interest rate cuts sooner than anticipated,” they added. “The report indicated a gain of 175,000 jobs in April, falling short of the 240,000 expected, while the unemployment rate nudged up to 3.9%. Additionally, wage growth was subdued, an encouraging sign for those monitoring inflation pressures.”
The renewed hopes for interest rate cuts boosted stock prices, leading to a positive close to the week. At the closing bell, the S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq all finished in the green, up 1.26%, 1.18%, and 1.99%, respectively.
Data provided by TradingView shows that Bitcoin bounced off support at $59,000 and hit a high of $63,245 in afternoon trading as traders jumped back into the market.
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
At the time of writing, King Crypto trades at $62,935, an increase of 7% on the 24-hour chart.
Going against the consensus
Before Bitcoin’s move higher on Friday, crypto researcher Alex Wacy noted, "The entire timeline is talking about $52k on $BTC.”
“It looks like the bottom has been reached now,” he said. “More buyers are showing interest at $52,000. Every rise is perceived as a short entry to 52k.”
For that reason, he proposed a contrarian outlook that has thus far proved prescient.
“Ideal scenario: 1) Draw a rise to $62,000; 2) Bring the price back to just below $56,500; 3) Rapid pump to $70,000+ and altseason start,” he said. “This would create a W-shaped reversal.”
Wacy noted that a similar development happened when Bitcoin traded at $17,000 and $24,000, and said, “The situation is identical now.”
“Everyone is eyeing $52k, but it's not feasible to dump the price just so everyone can buy in,” he said. “Whether I'm right, we'll find out in 7-10 days. Buying alts now is not a mistake.”
Regardless of the short-term movements, Legendary trader Peter Brandt ended the week posting his overall perspective on Bitcoin, calling it, “The trade of a lifetime,” and saying, “There has never been and never again will be another asset like Bitcoin.”
“2024 is my 50th year anniversary of the first futures market trade of my life – it was for contracts of bags of pre-1964 Silver quarters and dimes,” Brandt said. “I have traded a best-guess 35,000-plus futures contracts in my life covering everything from Corn to Gold, treasuries to Copper, Sugar to Palm Oil, Lumber to Cattle, stock indexes to shelled eggs, Iron Ore to Idaho Potatoes.
“I can say with no pause that there has never been a market like Bitcoin,” he said. “Sure, some of you ask, but what alt-coins and memes? Well, these proliferations owe their existence to Bitcoin.”
“What makes Bitcoin so unique? There are two things I point to,” he furthered. “1) The nature of the asset itself – non-hackable (at least so far), limited quantity, globally accepted, trackable, almost instantly transactional. 2) The price behavior of the asset.”
He noted that Bitcoin has seen “Repeated multiple X price advances over the years,” which have ranged from a 22x advance to a 3,191x advance. “Even though Bitcoin’s advances have been subject to exponential decay, the advance still put Bitcoin in a class by itself,” he said.
“The other price behavior feature is the magnitude of the bear market crashes between the multiple X advances,” Brandt added. “There have been at least seven declines in Bitcoin larger than 50% and six greater than 75%. Thus, Bitcoin has a unique feature of making some people a huge bundle and wiping out another cohort.”
“Not only have the major advances in BTC been according of parabolic nature, but of parabolic on log scale,” he said. “I can find no other stock, commodity, or publicly traded asset that can make the same claim.”
“What’s next for Bitcoin? Who knows. I am in my late 70s and of poor health, so I am unlikely to witness the end of the Bitcoin story,” Brandt concluded. “But I have no doubt but that excitement and surprises are to come. I remember that the stock market of the 1980s was the era of hostile takeovers of corporations. Bitcoin represents an attempted hostile takeover of the world’s currency system. What an exciting story to follow and take part in. I feel privileged that I’ve been able in some small part to have taken part in this grand experiment.”
Altcoins close out the week strong
Altcoins finished the week strong, with only ten tokens in the top 200 recording losses, and only three of those seeing a decline of more than 2%.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Archblock (ABT) was the biggest gainer, climbing 33.4% to trade at $3.54, followed by an increase of 20.1% for ZetaChain (ZETA), and a gain of 16.7% for ORDI (ORDI). GuildFi (GF) recorded the largest loss, falling 9.6%, while Jito (JTO) declined by 3.6%, and Arweave (AR) lost 2.2%.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.31 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 53.2%.
