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BTC Price at time of publishing: $91,300.

TLDR:

• Labour market cooling: Weak ADP and rising layoffs signal deterioration despite low Jobless Claims.
• Rate cuts ahead: December cut priced in; odds of a January cut have risen.
• BTC rally lacks strength: Move from $80k→$94k shows weak Spot demand and continued LTH selling.
• Flows not supportive: ETF inflows muted; LTH selling and soft Spot bid limit upside.
• Outlook: BTC likely range-bound, with risk of retesting $80k; attractive buy zone $75k–$82k; 2026 still viewed positively.

Topics covered:

• This Week's Data.
• Mechanics and Flows.
• Cryptonary's Take.

This Week's Data:

In the last two days, we've had ADP and Challenger jobs data out. ADP Employment Change (released on Wednesday) came in at -32k, far worse than the consensus +10k. Alongside this, Challenger Job Cuts came in at 71k (71k jobs cut). The Challenger survey Year-on-Year showed more layoffs and fewer hires.

ADP Employment Change:

However, Jobless Claims (the number of people claiming for unemployment benefits) moved down to 191k, the lowest figure since late 2022. But, Jobless Claims measures how many people claimed this week, so it's a very zoomed in and narrow metric. Layoffs are usually "the last shoe to drop", and when we look at the other metrics, they suggest that the labour market has materially cooled down and is now weakening. You'd expect layoffs to come as a result of this, but this should result in more interest rate cuts i.e., the Fed is potentially behind the curve.

Jobless Claims:

COMMENT: In terms of rate cuts’ pricing, these job figures didn't change much for the December 10th Meeting. It is still widely expected that the Fed will cut rates in 5 days. However, we did see an improvement in the odds for a January cut. Whilst still unlikely, the odds for a January rate cut have increased from 21.3% on November 29th to 25.1% today.

Target Rate Probabilities for 28 January 2026 Fed Meeting:

Note: we have PCE, Personal Income, and Personal Spending data out later today. But it's September's data, and therefore relatively outdated and unlikely to move markets, so we're not giving it too much weight in our overall analysis.

Mechanics and Flows:

In the last 3 weeks, we've seen price breakdown from the mid-$90k's, and quickly wick into $80k before bouncing into the $93k-$94k.

Initially, we saw a puke out in the ETFs (huge outflows), whilst Long-Term Holders continued to sell. This is what drove the move into $80k. The large ETF outflows have mostly stopped, and we're now in a more neutral period (some small inflow days, some small outflow days). This is positive. However, the Long-Term Holders aren't yet showing any signs of easing up on their sells, having now sold down their supply for the last 4 weeks.

ETF Flows:

Long-Term Holder Net Position Change:

For the price to make a meaningful turnaround, Long-Term Holders selling will need to ease, and the ETFs will need to become meaningful buyers again (large inflows).

Going back to the initial breakdown that drove price into $80k, we saw price bottom with a large volume candle - shown on the chart with the green circle.

BTC 1D Chart - Large Volume Candle:

We can also see a similar effect on the MSTR (MicroStrategy) chart.

MSTR 1D Chart - Large Volume Candle:

The large volume candle indicates a capitulatory move that was then ultimately bought up, marking the local bottom.

Since price has bounced from $80k to $93k-$94k, but it's not been driven by significant Spot volume, and we can see this with the Spot CVD having remained flat. Before, it was declining considerably, which is what contributed to the price moving down to $80k. Therefore, we have to question the health of this rally and whether it's sustainable. And from the metrics we're tracking, it doesn't look to be.

Spot CVD is the Spot Cumulative Volume Delta. This measures the net difference between buying and selling volume at the ask (aggressive buys) vs bid (aggressive sells) in the Spot market.

BTC Spot CVD:

Alongside this, if we then look to the Options market, we can see that traders aren't betting on meaningful upside here. More $100k Calls have been sold rather than bought. This suggests the upside conviction (using the $100k mark for BTC) amongst traders is limited.

Calls Sold vs Calls Bought for BTC @ $100k Strike Price:

In summary, from looking at the mechanics and the flows, the move up from $80k to $94k looks like a relief rally.

For this to change, we'd need to see the following:

• ETF inflows improve
• Long-Term Holders ease off on their selling, and ideally begin accumulating again
• The spot bid in the market to picking up again.

A potential catalyst for this might be a dovish Fed at next week's FOMC (Wednesday 10th). However, we are expecting a hawkish cut (the Fed to cut rates but to give hawkish forward guidance for future meetings), and therefore, we don't expect to see the above flows improve in the immediate term.

Cryptonary's Take:

This week's data shows a continued weakening in the labour market despite some individual data points suggesting that mass layoffs aren't imminent. But a deteriorating labour market likely results in layoffs down the line, and the Fed will need to meet this with more interest rate cuts in an attempt to stimulate growth and therefore hiring.

Fed speak suggests that there might be fewer cuts in the next 2-3 months, but the deteriorating data suggests that there might be more cuts (than what the market is expecting) in Q2, and into year-end 2026. This would be a positive tailwind for risk assets and therefore Crypto.

In terms of BTC's price action, we can see that the aggressive selling that resulted in BTC wicking into $80k has eased off on some metrics, like the ETFs. However, Long-Term Holders are still offloading size whilst there isn't a large Spot bid to offset this. And with our expectation that the Fed delivers a hawkish cut next week (the cut part is already mostly priced), we don't see a catalyst in the immediate term that would take BTC north of $100k. This is also reflected in the Options data that we've highlighted above, with more $100k Calls being sold, rather than bought.

For now, the move up in BTC from $80k to $94k looks like a relief rally, and we believe that $94k was the local top. And until the flows and underlying mechanics of the move improve, the greater likelihood is that price is range-bound in the short-term (capped at $94k), with the range lows ($80k) likely to be retested, and potentially even before year-end.

We remain of the view that 2026 will be a positive year, mid-term election years usually are. Therefore, should we see a move back down to $80k, and even below (we do expect this), then we'd be buyers of assets at those levels. For BTC, that looks like $75k-$82k.

We expect this to happen in the next 1-2 months, and we expect to be buyers there going into late Q1, with a bull market top going into the mid-term elections - Q3 2026 top.