XRP, Bitcoin Rise Despite Hotter-Than-Expected Jobs Data — Barrons.com
By Elsa OhlenBitcoin, XRP and other cryptocurrencies rose early Friday despite strong employment data fueling investors' concern that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates more slowly.Bitcoin briefly dipped below $93,000 immediately after the jobs numbers were released, but quickly pared losses, trading up 2% to $93,453 as the stock market opened, according to CoinDesk data. The price of the world's largest crypto is down more than 10% since the Federal Reserve's latest meeting on Dec. 18, which had a hawkish tone.Strong economic data and the prospect of fewer-than-expected interest rate cuts this year have weighted on crypto prices. Friday'sreport showed 256,000 jobs were added in December, way above expectations for 153,000. Unemployment was down to 4.1%, from 4.2% in November."This report is going to fuel a continuation of higher yields and pushes off the next Fed rate cut off even further. We might not see another rate cut until next quarter," said Bryce Doty, portfolio manager at Sit Fixed Income Advisors.Hotter-than-expected PMI and labor market data on Tuesday drove Bitcoins losses earlier this week, Bitbank crypto analyst Yuya Hasegawa noted. She said that if Friday's jobs data didn't exceed "market expectations significantly, bitcoin could continue recovering and end the week above $95k. If otherwise, there is a risk that bitcoin dips below $92k again."XRP, the digital coin used to facilitate and settle transactions on Ripple's payment platform, is up 1.9 % over the past 24 hours to $2.29.Other altcoins were rising, too. Ether was up 1.4%, Dogecoin rose 3.3%, and Solana rallied 1.6%.Despite a soft end to the year, crypto's postelection rally meant that major cryptos are still firmly in the green since Nov. 5, helped by hopes that President-elect Donald Trump, who is seen as having a positive outlook toward cryptos, will deliver policies to boost the "digital gold."Write to Elsa Ohlen at [email protected] content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.