862k jobs vanished, CPI cooled, and Bitcoin now trades like a bond
The post 862k jobs vanished, CPI cooled, and Bitcoin now trades like a bond appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
Earlier this month, we saw the macro picture shift in a very real and tangible way. The record of last year’s job level changed significantly, and markets treated that update as fresh information to trade on. Two days later, inflation cooled on the headline, yields moved, and Bitcoin moved in the same cross-asset rhythm that, until recently, belonged to rates and major equity indexes. Bitcoin used to react to crypto-specific headlines: a big company buying BTC, a new product launch, or a regulatory rumor. But in 2026, the price seems to react first to the same macro data that moves bonds and big equity indexes. The reason for that is simple: Bitcoin sits inside the global risk system now, and when markets reprice interest rates, they also reprice Bitcoin. On Feb. 11, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published its annual benchmark revision to payrolls. The revision lowered last year’s jobs baseline, with the March 2025 level revised down by 862,000 on a not-seasonally-adjusted basis. That change rewrote a huge part of the recent labor story in one move. Two days later, January CPI arrived. Headline inflation rose 0.2% month over month and slowed to 2.4% year over year, while core inflation ran firmer than headline and shelter remained a key driver. Around that cooler CPI print, global markets reported yields easing and Bitcoin rising nearly 5% to above $69,000, the kind of synchronized response that perfectly illustrates the new regime. Put those together, and you get the new crypto macro stack. Labor data and inflation shape expectations for the Federal Reserve, markets translate that into rate pricing, and the force that tends to hit Bitcoin hardest is the move in real yields. You can think of it as four translations that repeat across weeks: jobs, CPI, Fed pricing,…
Filed under: News - @ February 22, 2026 10:21 am