U.S. payrolls surprised to the upside in January, but a sweeping government revision cuts the wind from the headline — and markets, including crypto, reacted sharply. The Labor Department said nonfarm payrolls rose by 130,000 in January, beating economists’ consensus of roughly 70,000 and accelerating from December’s newly revised gain of 48,000. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3% from 4.4%, rather than holding steady as many had expected — signals that hiring momentum returned at the start of 2026. That upbeat headline, however, comes alongside dramatic benchmark adjustments from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS removed about 898,000 jobs from its estimates for April 2024 through March 2025, shaving total nonfarm employment growth for 2025 from 584,000 to just 181,000. November payrolls were revised down by 15,000 (to +41,000) and December by 2,000 (to +48,000); combined, November and December are now 17,000 jobs lighter than initially reported. Those revisions imply the labor market was noticeably weaker over the past year than earlier figures suggested. Why it matters for crypto: macro data that changes expectations for growth, inflation and Federal Reserve policy tends to move risk assets. After the report, crypto markets sold off — Bitcoin dropped more than 11% on the week and fell another roughly 2.5% in the past 24 hours amid broader volatility. Stronger-than-expected payrolls can be read as supporting tighter-than-anticipated monetary policy, which often pressures high-beta assets like crypto; conversely, the large downward revisions complicate the narrative by pointing to softer underlying conditions. What to watch next: whether market participants focus on January’s renewed hiring or the deeper message from the benchmark revisions. Traders will be parsing upcoming inflation data, Fed comments and bond-market moves for clues on rate paths — all factors that will continue to shape crypto price action in the near term. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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