Bitcoin defies 'extreme fear,' hot jobs report to show signs of resilience

Bitcoin $BTC$68,128.13 is hovering near $67,800, up on the day, as crypto markets took in January’s stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs report without an initial selloff.

The resilience is feeding a shift in sentiment, with the muted reaction possibly a signal of seller exhaustion and growing appetite for risk, despite a tough macro backdrop. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) has gained 1.5% since midnight UTC with all but one token, BCH$514.45, advancing.

The U.S. added 130,000 jobs in January, nearly double the expected 70,000. That data sharply reduced the odds of an early interest rate-cut by the Federal Reserve, pushing expectations out to July.

Typically, lowering rate-cut odds would hurt risk assets like cryptocurrencies. The report, however, also showed job growth remained concentrated in health care-related sectors while others remained mostly little changed. That suggests the red-hot headline number is masking underlying cooling across the broader economy.

Bitcoin’s resilience suggests seller exhaustion even as sentiment remains low. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is now at 5, its lowest level since the collapse of FTX in 2022.

Derivatives Positioning

• Bearish momentum is stabilizing, with open interest holding steady near $15.8 billion while perpetual funding rates have swung back to neutral or positive territory.
• Sentiment is notably bullish on Bybit (+9.5%) and Binance (+3.4%), though Hyperliquid remains a bearish outlier at -4.5%.
• The three-month basis remains stagnant at around 2%, suggesting that institutional conviction has yet to follow this retail-driven shift in funding.
• In the bitcoin options market, defensive caution is intensifying, and the one-week 25-delta skew dropped to 19%, with puts now accounting for 54% of 24-hour volume.
• The implied volatility (IV) term structure has shifted into short-term backwardation, reflecting a "panic premium" as traders pay for immediate downside protection.
• Coinglass data shows $342 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 49-51 split between longs and shorts. $BTC ($145 million), ETH ($84 million) and others ($18 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations.
• The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $68,800 as a core liquidation level to monitor, in case of a price rise.

Token Talk

• BlackRock (BLK) is bringing its $2.2 billion tokenized U.S. Treasury fund, BUIDL, to Uniswap, giving decentralized finance (DeFi) users access to Treasury yields through the platform.
• This marks the first time the world’s largest asset manager is listing a tokenized product on a decentralized exchange. BlackRock also disclosed a strategic investment in Uniswap and bought an undisclosed amount of $UNI, the exchange’s governance token.
• $UNI surged 25% on the news, climbing to $4.11. It has since dropped back to $3.35. This appears to be the first time a major financial institution has directly invested in a decentralized finance project's governance token.
• To enable the move, BlackRock worked with Uniswap Labs and compliance firm Securitize. BUIDL trades will route through UniswapX, an offchain quote system that sources prices from approved market makers and settles trades onchain.
• Investors must be qualified through Securitize, which ensures compliance with U.S. securities regulations.