A weaker-than-expected US Jobs Report revived economic jitters, spooking investors. US unemployment rose to 4.3% in August (July: 4.2%) as nonfarm payrolls increased by a modest 22k (July: 79k). Economists had expected nonfarm payrolls to rise by 75k.
However, the US BTC-spot ETF market reported total weekly net inflows of $250.3 million, extending inflows from the previous week. Weekly inflows lifted BTC, which has gained 1.76% for the week. According to Farside Investors, key weekly inflows included:
- iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) reported weekly net inflows of $434.3 million.
- Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC) had net inflows of $33.2 million.
- Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) saw net inflows of $25.1 million.
- Meanwhile, ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB), Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB), and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) reported total net outflows of $228.1 million.
While weekly flows bolstered BTC demand at $110,000, inflows failed to reverse August’s total net outflows of $749.2 million. The deficit left BTC trading well below its record high of $123,731 (August 14) and trailing the S&P 500.
Despite two consecutive weeks of net inflows, BTC has fallen 2.01% amid lingering macroeconomic headwinds. In contrast, the S&P 500 has gained 1.52%, while gold has soared 7.43%, challenging BTC’s status as digital gold.
Market intelligence platform Santiment commented on BTC’s divergence with US equities and gold, stating:
“In cases like this divergence over the past 2 weeks, Bitcoin (and altcoins) have a high probability of playing ‘catch up’ when they trail world economy price trends for a sustained period of time. The larger the gap between equities and BTC gets, the stronger the argument there is for an upcoming crypto bounce.”