Today's Coin Price 07/07: Bitcoin plunges to $30,000, altcoins and US stocks are hot as investors worry that the Fed will continue to raise interest rates

After Wall Street opened on July 6, Bitcoin continued to fluctuate, with the year’s highs giving way to corrections.

BTC Price Chart – 1 Hour | Source: TradingView

U.S. stocks fell on Thursday (July 6) as better-than-expected employment data raised investors' concerns about future interest rate trends.

As of the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 366.38 points, or 1.07%, to 33,922.26. The S&P 500 fell 0.79% to 4,411.59. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.82% to 13,679.04. Thursday marked the biggest declines for the Dow and S&P 500 since May 2023.

All three major indexes are set to post record weekly losses with just Friday's trading day left. The Dow is down 1.4% so far this week, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are down 0.9% and 0.8%, respectively.

ADP data showed that the U.S. private sector added 497,000 jobs in June, marking the strongest month since July 2022. June's job growth was more than double the Dow Jones forecast of 220,000 jobs and much better than the 267,000 in May. The two-year Treasury yield rose to a 16-year high in trading.

The ADP data, which is typically unreliable and considered more volatile than other employment data, comes ahead of the official U.S. June jobs report on Friday (07/07/2017). Economists forecast the U.S. economy created 240,000 jobs last month, slightly below the 339,000 jobs added in May.

However, investors may now be expecting hotter data to lead the Federal Reserve to resume raising interest rates this month after pausing at its June meeting. According to CME Group’s FedWatch tool, investors are pricing in a 92% chance of a rate hike at the Fed’s month-end meeting.

On the other hand, the Labor Department reported that hiring fell more than expected in May, data that could offer hope that the tight labor market is at least easing somewhat.

Meanwhile, gold prices fell to their lowest level in nearly a week on Thursday (July 6) as a better-than-expected U.S. private sector jobs report boosted expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates, pushing up U.S. bond yields.

As of Thursday's trading day, the spot gold contract fell 0.38% to $1,910.01 per ounce. Gold futures fell 0.6% to $1,915.4 per ounce.

Oil prices were little changed on Thursday as the market weighed scarcer U.S. crude supplies and the possibility that higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve could curb energy demand.

At the close, the Brent crude contract fell 13 cents to $76.52 a barrel, up 0.5% in the previous session. The WTI contract rose slightly by 1 cent to $71.8 a barrel, up 2.9% in the previous session, catching up with Brent crude prices earlier this week.

Data from TradingView tracked BTC price action as it hovered around the $30,000 mark.

Earlier in the day, Bitcoin rallied to its highest level since mid-2022, but the party was quickly over as the largest cryptocurrency gave back all of its gains.

BTC/USD even set a new July low near $29,701.

Popular trader Jelle is one of those eyeing the possibility of prices returning to the $28,000 range, which he believes would be a suitable entry point.

Michaël van de Poppe, founder and CEO of trading firm 8, wrote in part: "Bitcoin has returned to the bottom and needs to turn bullish, otherwise $28,500 could be on the cards. The market is anticipating a rate hike on the back of positive unemployment data."

BTC/USD chart with caption | Source: Michael van der Popp

Van de Poppe pointed to strong US jobs data released before Wall Street opened, which boosted expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again in late July.

As BTC fell below $30,000, many open interests were liquidated, but the overall liquidation volume is still not very high.

According to monitoring resource CoinGlass, BTC long and short liquidations totaled $43 million on July 6. Total cryptocurrency liquidations totaled about $120 million.

Cryptocurrency liquidation data | Source: CoinGlass

On the altcoin front, the market continues to move lower, with the largest market cap asset back below $30,000.

Leading the gains was Fantom (FTM), with the token losing more than 10% of its value on the day. The project also erased the momentum from the previous week, with a seven-day drop of nearly 11%.

Other major altcoins in the top 100 such as WOO Network (WOO), ApeCoin (APE), Lido DAO (LDO), Algorand (ALGO), Pepe (PEPE), Litecoin (LTC), Mina (MINA), Injective (INJ), Filecoin (FIL), UNUS SED LEO (LEO)… are down 4-9% on the day.

Source: Coinmarketcap

After hitting a local high of $1,956, Ethereum (ETH) faced huge selling pressure, dragging the second largest market capitalization asset below the $1,900 mark and establishing a local bottom around $1,832, the lowest level since late June. ETH has now recovered slightly to around $1,844, down nearly 3% on the day.

ETH Price Chart – 1 hour | Source: TradingView