The cryptocurrency market displays widespread bullish momentum as Friday’s United States employment figures approach.
Bitcoin crossed $86,000 by 9:10 UTC, marking a 3.4% increase over a 24-hour window. Ether, XRP, solana, and BNB also experienced upward movement, although none matched the pace set by bitcoin.
More substantial surges occurred further down the market capitalization rankings. SKY, AAVE, and APT climbed between 7% and 10%, positioning them as top performers among the top 100 digital assets by market value.
Bitcoin market dominance, representing its portion of the entire cryptocurrency sector, approaches the 60% threshold. Simultaneously, the market share for USDT, the leading stablecoin tied to the dollar, decreased to approximately 6.3%, indicating that traders are transitioning out of fiat reserves and into digital tokens. Both metrics suggest a financial climate increasingly receptive to risk.
Scheduled for release at 8:30 a.m. ET, the nonfarm payrolls update is projected to indicate that the U.S. labor market incorporated 90,000 jobs during September, down from 162,000 in August. FactSet consensus projections anticipate the unemployment rate will remain steady at 4.1%.
The primary concern for bitcoin centers on how Treasury yields, specifically inflation-adjusted real yields, will respond. Analysts are closely monitoring these employment numbers alongside the upcoming October 14 consumer price index release for that exact reason.
Oliver Carding, head of marketing at Tesseract Group, a firm overseeing $500 million in assets, stated: “I am watching Friday’s payrolls and the 14 October CPI mainly for their effect on longer-dated yields. I use a 10-year real yield of about 3% as a monitoring level, and a sustained move above it would make a retest of $80,000 to $82,000 more likely than a run at $90,000.”
Following dovish commentary from New York Fed President John Williams and Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson, market participants now price in a 30% likelihood of an October interest rate increase, down from a previous 70%. Reduced probabilities of monetary tightening typically benefit risk-on assets such as bitcoin.
Such probability figures are unlikely to shift significantly unless employment figures drastically exceed projections, according to market analysts. A major upward surprise could reignite expectations for rate hikes and potentially introduce downward pressure on bitcoin.
Derivatives positioning
- BTC open interest expanded to $22.4 billion, up from $20.9 billion the prior day, while funding rates begin escalating across select platforms—reaching 9% to 10% annualized on Hyperliquid and OKX. The 3-month annualized basis on Deribit maintained stability above 6%. This growth in open interest coupled with stronger funding rates signifies the accumulation of leveraged long positions.
- Options market activity maintained a strong call preference, with the 24-hour put/call ratio registering 88% favoring calls, compared to 83% previously. The 1-week 25-delta skew compressed further to approximately 1.5% down from about 4%, while the at-the-money term structure maintains contango, starting near 27% to 28% at the front end and climbing to roughly 40% toward late 2027.
- Coinglass metrics highlight $344 million in liquidations over 24 hours, rising from $100 million the day before, featuring a 28-72 distribution between longs and shorts. BTC at $132 million, ETH at $70 million, and others at $26 million represented the primary assets by notional liquidations. The Binance liquidation map highlights $87,400 as a key liquidation threshold to watch if prices continue upward.
Token talk
- Quant led market decliners following an exceptionally volatile week, surrendering about 15% over 24 hours to hover near $250. The interoperability asset had earlier more than tripled during a multi-day rally, prior to profit-taking taking hold alongside a broader cooling trend among previous market leaders.
- LayerZero and Aave emerged among the prominent large-cap gainers, advancing approximately 11% and 9% respectively over a 24-hour period. ZRO traded close to $1.91, while AAVE climbed to $182 as accumulation intensified around proposed protocol updates and discussions regarding fee-switch governance.
- The previous session’s leading assets reversed direction as Ethena and NEAR Protocol declined roughly 9% and 8.6% respectively over 24 hours. ENA fell toward $0.25 after previously touching multi-week peaks, while NEAR dropped under $5.00.
- Memecoins demonstrated localized strength, spearheaded by dogwifhat, which gained 6.2% over 24 hours to trade near $0.26. The launchpad token pump.fun also experienced renewed buying pressure, ticking upward by nearly 4% as speculative capital shifted within the vertical.
- Stacks and Midnight both paused their aggressive multi-day rallies, falling roughly 5% and 5.6% respectively over 24 hours. STX maintained a price near $0.38 following Wednesday’s executive leadership announcement, whereas NIGHT retreated to $0.04 after advancing past 20% earlier in the week.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/10/02/crypto-traders-are-in-risk-on-mode-as-bitcoin-dominance-nears-return-to-60.
