Bitcoin crosses $17,000 for first time in 2023, thanks to US job report: What lies ahead?

On CoinMarketCap, at the time of writing, Bitcoin traded above $17,200 up by 1.5%. Its market cap is $331.31 billion. In the last 24 hours, there has been a nearly 83% upside in trading volumes in Bitcoin.

Earlier in the day, the crypto had inched closer to the $17,250 mark. Following the rally, Bitcoin’s weekly gains are now nearly 3%.

Notably, as per CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin’s ROI is up nearly 12,630%. However, Bitcoin is still lower by 75% from its all-time high of $68,789.63 which was recorded on November 10, 2021.

Talking about Bitcoin crossing the $17,000 mark, Dhruvil Shah – SVP Technology – Liminal, a digital wallet infrastructure platform said, “The latest US jobs reports revealed that the unemployment rate has gone down significantly and is reversed to pre-covid levels. The dip in the unemployment rate was perceived as a macro boost which resulted in a surge in US and European stocks along with the crypto market.”

Shah added, “Bitcoin broke major resistance levels of $16,800 and $17,000 for the first time in 2023.”

As per US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the country’s total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 223,000 in December, and the unemployment rate edged down to 3.5%. Notable job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality, health care, construction, and social assistance.

Notably, the expansion in nonfarm payroll alongside slow down in wage increases and contraction in services activity has led to comfort investors’ worries over a hawkish stance and more rate hikes from the US Federal Reserve.

US services activity dropped for the first time in over two and half years to 49.6 in December from the previous month’s 56.5.

Moreover, in the crypto market, counterparts such as Ethereum also zoomed nearly 4% and traded at over $1,310. The token’s weekly upside is nearly 8%.

Other top tokens such as BNB jumped over 6%, XRP nearly 3% up, Dogecoin advanced nearly 5% and Polygon surged nearly 7%. In percentage terms, the Cardano token skyrocketed nearly 17% in the last 24 hours.

In 7 days, BNB jumped nearly 12%, XRP was up nearly 2%, Cardano soared over 27%, Dogecoin was higher by 4% and Polygon surged over 10%.

Among the top trending cryptocurrencies were Shiba Inu, Bitcoin and Polygon, PancakeSwap, and STEPN.

Overall, the crypto market cap jumped by 3% to $848.96 billion over the last day. While the crypto market volume icreased by a whopping 104.4% to $33.86 billion over the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin’s dominance is currently around 39.06% on CoinMarketCap.

What to expect ahead?

According to Shah, Bitcoin could rise further toward the next hurdle which is at $18,000 resistance.

He added, “Most of the crypto assets witnessed mini-rally due to the positive investor sentiment driven by favourable macro-economic factors. It will be interesting to see how Fed reacts in its next meeting in February, which will decide the future course of the financial and crypto market.”

Disclaimer: The views and recommendations made above are those of individual analysts or broking companies, and not of Mint. We advise investors to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.