Bitcoin is trading below $91,000, with most large-caps flat or down today, despite somewhat positive jobs data from the U.S.
With prices barely shifting since Wednesday, crypto markets are broadly flat today as Bitcoin drifts near $90,000, and traders digest a delayed U.S. jobs report.
As of press time, Bitcoin (BTC) is holding steady at around $91,000, down 0.5% over the past 24 hours, and 11% on the week.
Ethereum (ETH) is down 1.4% to trade just above $3,000, after struggling to hold that level, and dipping as low as $2,870 in the past 24 hours, giving more signals that bears are willing to keep the price under $3,000.
Among the top-10 crypto assets by market capitalization, SOL and DOGE are the only ones in the green today, up 2.7% and 1.1%, respectively.
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is still at extreme fear levels for the fifth day in a row, showing that the market is dominated by caution.
Not Yet ‘True Bear Market’
A glassnode senior researcher warned in an X post today that while Bitcoin is testing key on-chain price models, the market has not yet entered a “true bear market.” According to CryptoVizArt, a drop below the Active Investors Mean and the True Market Mean would signal “the first major confirmation of a deeper bear trend since May 2022.”
In its broader Nov. 19 update, glassnode noted that Bitcoin’s drop below $97,000 and brief touch of $89,000 brought the cryptocurrency’s year-to-date performance into negative territory and intensified questions about “where structural support may re-emerge.”
Iliya Kalchev, market analyst at Nexo, said in commentary shared with The Defiant that Bitcoin’s rebound came as investors “weighed the Fed’s divided tone and the delayed jobs data.”
Big Movers and Liquidations
Among the top-100 assets, Zcash (ZEC) is leading once again with a 9% jump on the day, followed by Cosmos Hub (ATOM), also up 9%.
On the downside, Canton (CC) is down 9.8%, while Aster (ASTER) and Monero (XMR) both slipped over 5%.
Data from Coinglass shows that liquidations surged, with $659.4 million wiped out over the past 24 hours. Longs accounted for $454 million, while shorts saw $205 million. ETH led with $203 million in liquidations, followed by BTC at $174.5 million and ZEC at $74 million.
ETFs and Macro Conditions
Both BTC and ETH exchange-traded funds are continuing their outflow streak. Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $75.47 million in net inflows on Wednesday, Nov. 19, bringing total net assets to $117.34 billion, per SoSoValue. Meanwhile, spot Ethereum ETFs had $37.35 million in net outflows, with net assets standing at $18.19 billion.
On the macro side, the U.S. economy added way more jobs than expected in September, according to a long-awaited report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, published today. However, the unemployment rate rose to 4.4%, the highest level since October 2021, CNBC reports
Nonfarm payrolls went up by 119,000 for the month, but has shown “little change since April,” the BLS wrote. Per CNBC, economists had been expecting just 50,000 new jobs in September, citing the Dow Jones consensus.
Traders are awaiting the BLS’s Real Earnings report from September as well, which is scheduled to be released tomorrow, Nov. 21.
