The first non-farm employment data of 2026 has just been released, and the market is not as optimistic as expected.

**The Truth Behind the Data**

New job additions stood at only 50,000, far below the expected 70,000. More notably, the previous two months' data were significantly revised downward, with October even corrected to negative growth of -173,000. The unemployment rate, however, unexpectedly declined to 4.4% (previous: 4.6%), marking a new low since September last year. Hourly wages grew 0.3% month-over-month and 3.8% year-over-year.

What signal does this data set convey? Employment growth has essentially stalled, while the unemployment rate is declining—the real story behind this is a falling labor force participation rate. In other words, it's not that the market needs workers, but that some people are choosing to exit the labor force.

**What the Federal Reserve Thinks**

Despite weak employment data, given that wages are still growing and unemployment is declining, there's an extremely high probability the Fed will keep rates unchanged at the end of January. The US dollar index is fluctuating in the 98-99 range, and the 10-year Treasury yield has rebounded to 4.2%—the market's stance is clear: we're not at a point where "emergency relief" is needed yet.

**Crypto Market Reaction**

After the data release, BTC quickly held above the $90,000 mark. As long as there's no extreme recession signal like a spike in unemployment, the market tends to interpret this as "justification for modest rate cuts." The logic is straightforward: easing recession expectations = potential liquidity loosening = support for risk assets. From this perspective, the current data environment is actually relatively favorable for the crypto market.