U.S. EIA Strategic Petroleum Reserve Inventory for the week ending August 22

The recent sharp fluctuations in the number of initial jobless claims in the United States have drawn market attention. At the beginning of September, this figure soared to 263,000, setting a new high in four years, before quickly dropping to 231,000. This "roller coaster" change may be attributed to abnormal previous values and the impact of the Labor Day holiday, and does not necessarily reflect a real deterioration in the job market. In fact, the number of applicants at 230,000 is still within the normal range post-pandemic. More importantly, it is essential to observe the long-term trends. The number of people continuously applying for unemployment benefits has remained between 1.9 million and 2 million, indicating that long-term unemployment pressure has not significantly increased. The current characteristics of the U.S. job market are: companies are not laying off many employees, but they are also hesitant to hire on a large scale, reflecting an overall wait-and-see attitude. This is mainly due to uncertainties in policies and costs, which have a more pronounced impact on small and medium-sized enterprises. For the cryptocurrency market, the interpretation of employment data is particularly sensitive. Poor data may trigger market expectations for the Federal Reserve to loosen monetary policy, which would be favorable for risk assets; improved data could suppress interest rate cut expectations, putting pressure on coin prices. The recent data adjustment seems more like a technical correction after an anomaly, and its sustainability needs to be confirmed by observing data in the coming weeks. If the number of unemployment claims can stabilize below 230,000, it will support the argument for a soft landing of the economy; if it rebounds again, Bitcoin's safe-haven attributes may be sought after by the market once more. It is worth noting that employment fluctuations are significant in places like Texas and Michigan, reflecting the increasing regional divergence in the job market. In the long run, these regional differences may create new application opportunities for blockchain technology in areas such as unemployment insurance and wage settlement. Although employment data seems unrelated to the cryptocurrency market, it actually directly impacts the market's liquidity expectations, which in turn affects the price trends of cryptocurrencies. Therefore, investors should not only focus on significant fluctuations in a single week but should also pay attention to changes in long-term trends. The stability of the job market and regional differences may bring new opportunities and challenges to the cryptocurrency market.