Federal Reserve holds steady and non-farm payrolls exceed expectations: Bitcoin's macro re-pricing game above $80,000

In May 2026, when the Federal Open Market Committee announced that the benchmark interest rate would remain unchanged within the 3.50%–3.75% range, the market was met not with a single dovish reassurance, but with a set of contradictory data puzzles—labor markets showed unexpectedly strong resilience, while inflation readings continued to hover above target levels. Bitcoin engaged in a tug-of-war around the $80,000 mark, with both sides waiting for macro cracks to appear.

Interest Rates Remain Steady

The Federal Reserve concluded its two-day FOMC policy meeting on April 29, 2026, with an 8-4 vote to keep the federal funds rate target range at 3.50%–3.75%, setting a record for opposition votes since 1992. This marked the third consecutive pause in rate adjustments after January and March. During this rate-cutting cycle, the Fed began easing in late 2024, and after a 25 basis point cut in September 2025, the total easing has reached 125 basis points, pulling the federal funds rate from its peak range of 5.25%–5.50% since July 2023 to the current level. Since the start of this year, due to economic data consistently outperforming expectations, policy has clearly entered an observation phase.

Equally important to this rate decision was the subsequent release of the U.S. April non-farm payroll report. Data showed 115k new non-farm jobs added in April, below the revised 185k in March but well above the 55k forecast by Dow Jones economists, and also higher than Bloomberg’s estimate of 65k and Reuters’ forecast of 62k. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%, while average hourly earnings grew 3.6% year-over-year, below market expectations of 3.8%, easing concerns about a wage-price spiral.

On inflation, the easing process has not been smooth. In the March economic forecast summary, the Fed raised its 2026 core PCE inflation forecast from 2.5% to 2.7%, and also revised up the 2027 forecast to 2.2%. In March, overall PCE rose 3.5% year-over-year, with core PCE up 3.2%. The stickiness of service prices and housing costs, combined with rising energy prices due to Middle Eastern geopolitical conflicts, makes the “last mile” of inflation control particularly difficult. These factors form the direct logic behind the rate pause: the economy has not cooled enough to warrant immediate rate cuts, and inflation has not yet safely fallen back into the target range.

The Tug-of-War Between Employment and Inflation

For the crypto market, this macro data structure offers more information than the surface numbers suggest.

April’s employment growth remains highly concentrated in a few sectors—healthcare added 37k jobs leading, transportation and warehousing added 30k, retail added 22k. Meanwhile, the information technology services sector shed 13k jobs, with a total loss of 342k jobs since November 2022, an 11% decline. The federal government continued to cut 9,000 jobs. The employment breadth index narrowed compared to March, indicating that new jobs are becoming more concentrated rather than broadly distributed.

Structurally, the nominal high-interest-rate environment exerts holding costs on assets like Bitcoin that carry no interest, but persistent price pressures and expanding fiscal deficits reinforce its narrative as a non-sovereign store of value. Gate’s market data clearly reflects this tug-of-war—by May 9, 2026, Bitcoin was priced at $80,465.60, up 1.27% in 24 hours, with a daily high of $80,510.90 and a low of $79,250.00. Its market cap reached $1.61 trillion, with market sentiment indicators leaning neutral. Over the past 7 days, prices ranged narrowly between $78,081.40 and $82,828.20, up 1.96%; over 30 days, a cumulative gain of 11.76%, with a medium-term trend still relatively strong but short-term momentum clearly waning.

The Diminishing Temperature of Rate Cut Expectations

Current market discussions about the interest rate path have shifted from “when will rate cuts begin” to “whether there will be rate cuts within the year.” According to the CME FedWatch tool, as of early May, the market assigns about a 92.8% probability that rates will hold steady in June, with only a 7.2% chance of a cut. For the September meeting, the probability of holding steady is roughly 83%, with a 16% chance of a cut. Traders price in about a 72.6% chance that rates will not be cut within 2026, whereas earlier in the year, the market widely expected one or two rate cuts within the year.

This sharp revision impacts narratives in the crypto market. Factually, the third consecutive rate hold narrows the easing window. But there are significant divergences in opinion. One camp believes that Bitcoin’s over 20% rebound since early 2026 has already priced in the liquidity improvement expectations from earlier, and as the timetable for rate cuts keeps pushing back, risk assets face diminishing upside. The other camp argues that the current pause is not a tightening restart; real interest rates have not risen further, and major global central banks remain dovish, with financial conditions still loose, providing a relatively friendly liquidity environment for risk assets.

In the discussion of “FOMC crypto asset pricing,” a gradually gaining view is that Bitcoin is increasingly decoupling from liquidity-driven trading signals and more reflecting fiscal credibility and geopolitical safe-haven premiums. This narrative suggests that the ongoing expansion of U.S. fiscal deficits and relentless Treasury supply are leading more institutions to view Bitcoin as a non-sovereign asset allocation choice, countering fiat currency credit rather than merely reacting to interest rate cycles. This view remains speculative, lacking consistent data validation.

In terms of narrative authenticity, two facts are noteworthy. First, Bitcoin has not experienced dramatic volatility following this rate pause decision, unlike the period in early 2025 when similar decisions triggered over 5% swings, indicating that short-term sensitivity to interest rate changes has diminished. Second, the total market cap of stablecoins has recently remained above $300 billion, with USDT approaching $188 billion, showing that internal crypto market buying power has not withdrawn; funds are “waiting” rather than “leaving” in response to macro uncertainties.

Industry Impact Analysis: The Gradual Shift in Macro Transmission Chains

The persistent high-interest-rate macro environment directly impacts the crypto industry in three analytical layers (opinions marked as such):

1. Slowing institutional allocation pace. Elevated risk-free rates make traditional fixed-income products more attractive, potentially squeezing out some funds from crypto asset management. Recent net inflows into Bitcoin ETFs have slowed compared to Q1 but remain positive, indicating potential demand for allocation has not reversed.

2. Funding costs for decentralized finance (DeFi) are under pressure. In a context where yields on traditional money market funds remain attractive, on-chain lending protocols’ stablecoin yields need to offer sufficient premiums to attract incremental capital. However, some protocols, through real-world asset tokenization and derivatives innovation, have stabilized annualized yields at competitive levels, providing some buffer.

3. The rebalancing of mining continues. Since the 2024 halving, mining profitability has been squeezed by both Bitcoin prices and total network hash rate. According to CoinShares, the weighted average cash cost of listed mining companies has risen to about $79,995; Checkonchain data shows the network’s average production cost around $87,000. At prices above $80,000, miners with higher costs are unprofitable, and total hash rate has fallen roughly 20% from its October 2025 peak of about 1.1 ZH/s to around 913–920 EH/s. Recent data shows the network hash rate at approximately 970.8 EH/s, warranting ongoing monitoring.

Conclusion

The Fed’s third pause does not reflect policy rigidity but signals a macro environment at a structural turning point. The resilience of employment, inflation’s sluggishness, and concerns over fiscal credibility are still in a complex tug-of-war. For Bitcoin, the current price center at $80,000 is both a short-term equilibrium point for bulls and bears and a crossroads for long-term narrative shifts.

As the market’s expectation of rate cuts continues to fade, it becomes more important to observe the subtle shifts in asset pricing logic: from purely liquidity-driven speculation to a re-examination of the boundaries of fiat currency systems. Such a shift will not happen overnight, but the logical gaps it leaves behind may well be the starting point for the next wave of structural market cycles.