Bitcoin Still in Death Cross as Jobs Miss Cuts Rate-Hike Odds

The U.S. labor market cracked harder than anyone expected. Employers cut 23,000 jobs in July—the first net loss since the pandemic-era recovery, and a sharp miss against the 95,000 gain economists had penciled in.

The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1% only because more people quit the labor force entirely. June’s gain was revised to 20,000 from 57,000, and May was nearly halved.

Markets read it as a reason for the Federal Reserve to keep its hands off rates. Treasury yields fell, the dollar dropped 0.5%, and CME FedWatch showed the odds of a September rate hike sliding to 40% from 55% a day earlier.

A softer Fed path is usually a tailwind for risk assets and crypto—but Bitcoin’s chart shows a market that hasn’t reclaimed its trend.

Bitcoin price: What the charts say

Bitcoin is trading at $64,938, up 1.06% (+$683) on the session, after a green candle closed near its high. It’s compressing below its two key moving averages.

The trajectory tells the story. BTC topped near $80,000 in mid-May, then slid to a July low around $58,000 in a clean downtrend through the spring. The 50-day EMA (the average price over the last 50 sessions) is below the 200-day EMA (the average over the last 200 sessions) in formation traders call a death cross. When the shorter average sits under the longer one, the medium-term trajectory still points down. Since the July low, the fall has flattened into a sideways coil, but price has not pushed back above either average.

The Relative Strength Index, or RSI, reads 54.6. RSI is a momentum gauge on a 0–100 scale: above 70 is overbought, below 30 is oversold. At 54.6, momentum is neutral—no fuel for a breakout, no washout either.

The bull case, considering the technicals, would form if a daily close back above the 50-day EMA and the $66,000 whole-number resistance opens a run at the 200-day EMA ($64,00) and the cloud top near $72,000. More into the fundamentals, a softer Fed and a weak dollar give that push a reason to fire. The bull case exists, but it’s thin: Bitcoin’s price has failed to reclaim the 50-day line through the whole coil.

Bear case: a break below $60,000 (the cloud floor and a round-number magnet) confirms the bears still own the structure and points back to the July low of $58,000. A daily close under that reopens the spring downtrend.

On Myriad, a prediction market developed by Decrypt‘s parent company Dastan, the outlook for Bitcoin remains bearish. Traders are currently pricing in nearly 65% odds that Bitcoin heads back down to $55K before mounting any recovery towards $84K. And those have barely moved over the last week.

For now, $65K is the line in the sand. Above the 50-day EMA, the July chop looks like base-building; below $60K, it looks like a bear flag.

The jobs report gave Bitcoin the macro cover to rally, but the death cross says it hasn’t earned it yet.