News · Oct 3, 2026 · 3 min read
Bitcoin today: a weak jobs report cools Fed hike bets, and mining difficulty barely moves
The US added 29,000 jobs in September against forecasts near 90,000, and bets on a Fed rate hike cooled. Bitcoin rose 1.5% to $84,862, and mining difficulty reset by just 0.03%, the smallest retarget since 2020.
A weak jobs report cooled the case for a Fed hike
The US economy added 29,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate rose to 4.2%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday 2 October. Both were described as having "changed little" in the Bureau's release. Revisions took 31,000 off July, which now shows a loss of 10,000 jobs, and 29,000 off August, to 133,000.
Forecasts were near 90,000, according to Yahoo Finance, and the weak figure cooled bets that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates. For bitcoin, a lower chance of a hike matters because the 10-year Treasury yield has spent two weeks above 5%, its highest since 2007.
Stocks rose on the bad news and bitcoin followed
The S&P 500 gained 0.73% and the Nasdaq 1.19% on the day, and Nvidia reached a record market value of $5.7 trillion, Yahoo Finance reported. The 10-year yield ended 0.04 points higher at 5.28%, so the move was about rate expectations rather than falling yields.
Bitcoin ended 2 October at $84,862 on our price series, up 1.5% on the day from $83,571. Funding on the perpetual was about 6% a year, close to flat, and futures open interest stood at $32.9 billion, down from $38.6 billion on 23 September. Liquidations on the day were $129 million of shorts and $76 million of longs.
Spot ETFs took in $103 million on 1 October
Net flows into the US spot bitcoin ETFs were +$102.7 million on 1 October after -$148.7 million on 30 September, on our ETF flows chart. The funds hold 1,281,274 bitcoin. Flows for 2 October had not been published when this was written.
Mining difficulty reset by 0.03%, the smallest retarget since 2020
At 07:16 UTC on 3 October the network reset mining difficulty from 132.76 trillion to 132.72 trillion, a cut of 0.03%, according to mempool.space. It is the fourth-smallest of 466 retargets, and the 19 earlier ones this year averaged 4.4%.
The full reading, with what a flat retarget does to the coins a machine makes, is in our data piece.
The SEC says more crypto proposals are coming
After proposing custody rules for advisers and funds on 1 October, SEC Chair Paul Atkins said in his statement: "More regulatory proposals are on the horizon." He added that "our work is not finished". The custody proposal itself is covered in yesterday's recap.
What it means for miners
Hashprice was $40.54 per petahash per day on 2 October, in our hashprice chart, and a flat retarget leaves it where it was. A machine earns the same coins this fortnight as last, and the coin costs about $18,000 to make in electricity with the most efficient machine in stock on our cheapest power, against a market price near $84,000.
A soft jobs print moves rate bets, and rate bets move the dollar price. They do not move what a machine mines. For a miner who keeps the coins, this is a day for checking the electricity bill rather than the chart. Output is never guaranteed.
Sources and further reading
- The Employment Situation: September 2026 — US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2 Oct 2026
- Nvidia Hits Record High as Market Value Reaches $5.7 Trillion — Yahoo Finance, 2 Oct 2026
- Statement on Proposal to Address the Custody of Crypto Assets Under the Investment Advisers Act and the Investment Company Act — US Securities and Exchange Commission, 1 Oct 2026
- Bitcoin difficulty adjustments: every retarget since 2009 — mempool.space, 3 Oct 2026
Disclosure
Firsthand Bitcoin sells and hosts mining hardware, including this machine. No manufacturer, distributor or affiliate programme paid for or reviewed this page and we take no commission on the links above. Historical figures are computed from daily bitcoin price and network hashprice, each day valued at its own prices. Nothing here is investment advice.