Share this article

Bitcoin Falls After 517,000 Jobs Added in January, Beating Expectations

The U.S. government also reported the unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, below the forecast of 3.6%.

Updated May 9, 2023, 4:07 a.m. Published Feb 3, 2023, 1:37 p.m.
jwp-player-placeholder

The U.S. added 517,000 jobs in January, reported the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a huge jump from the revised 260,000 in December and massively beating economist forecasts for 185,000.

The unemployment rate fell to 3.4% versus 3.5% in December and against forecasts for 3.6%.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters

Average hourly earnings stayed the same in January at 0.3% versus December, with expectations of 0.3%. On a year-over-year basis, average hourly earnings fell 4.4% versus 4.6% in December and expectations for 4.3%.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell to $23,379 in the minutes after the news.

"This will give the [Federal Reserve] absolutely no reassurance that labor market imbalances – which have been adding to wage pressures - are easing," Brian Coulton, chief economist at Fitch Ratings, said. "It will reinforce the message that the Fed still has quite a lot of work to do to tame core inflation."

Both traditional and crypto markets earlier this week rallied after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the "disinflationary process has started" during his post-press conference following the rate announcement.

Friday's strong payrolls report once again may dash the expectations of traders hoping that a significant deterioration in the strong employment picture might have the Fed put rate hikes on hold, and even get the central bank to think about rate cuts later in 2023.

UPDATE (Feb. 9 14:12 UTC) – Adds comment from Brian Coulton, chief economist at Fitch Ratings.

More For You

Protocol Research: GoPlus Security

GP Basic Image

What to know:

  • As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
  • GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
  • Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.

More For You

Stripe Acqui-Hires Crypto Payments Startup Valora, Venturing Further Into Stablecoins

Stripe co-founder Patrick and John Collison (Stripe)

The team behind the Celo-based app is joining Stripe, while the intellectual property is returned to cLabs.

What to know:

  • The team behind Valora, a crypto payments app, is joining Stripe to advance its blockchain and stablecoin integration.
  • Stripe recently acquired crypto firms Bridge and Privy, and is developing with Paradigm the Tempo blockchain for stablecoin payments.
  • Valora, built on the Celo network, became a standalone company in 2021 after raising $20 million.