Bitcoin Drops Below $60K After Strong Jobs Data, Zcash Bug
Bitcoin fell below $60,000 to about $59,909 after U.S. employers added 172,000 jobs in May and a Zcash flaw sent ZEC crashing.
Bitcoin fell below $60,000 to about $59,909 on Friday after U.S. payrolls surprised to the upside and a critical vulnerability in Zcash triggered a sharp sell-off in ZEC. Bitcoin was down roughly 6% on the day and about 18.5% for the week.
U.S. employers added 172,000 jobs in May, roughly double expectations. Stronger payrolls pushed traders to price in higher interest rates by the end of the year using CME’s FedWatch tool, narrowing hopes for rate cuts. Nicolai Søndergaard, research analyst at crypto analytics firm Nansen, noted: “Strong jobs data kills the rate cut narrative. Bitcoin, already down 15% and sitting on uncleared leveraged longs, has no macro catalyst to recover into, and Middle East tensions are keeping risk appetite soft across markets.”
Developers disclosed a critical counterfeiting vulnerability in Zcash’s Orchard shielded pool that could have allowed undetectable minting for more than four years. A patch was issued, but developers said they cannot currently confirm whether the flaw was exploited because the protocol’s privacy features limit on-chain tracing. Following the disclosure, ZEC fell from a Wednesday local high near $635 to an intraday low around $309 on Thursday and later traded near $330, down about 38% in the 24 hours after the announcement.
Other major cryptocurrencies fell over the week. Ethereum traded near $1,555, down about 23% on the week, and Solana fell roughly 22% to about $63.75. Bitcoin’s price remains more than 52% below its all-time high of $126,080 set last October.
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs ended a 13-day streak of outflows on Thursday by adding just over $3 million, a small inflow after larger redemptions earlier in the year left overall ETF flows for 2026 in negative territory. Equities reflected the risk-off tone: the Nasdaq was down about 2.5% and Nvidia shares fell roughly 4.5%. MicroStrategy sold Bitcoin for the first time since 2022 and its shares declined nearly 10% on the day; Coinbase shares fell more than 8%.
Market participants awaited further updates on monetary policy, security audits and any additional exploit disclosures as trading continued.
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