Fox Business crypto reporter Eleanor Terrett said on X that a small group of crypto executives met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick before President Donald Trump and industry leaders spoke at the White House on Wednesday. According to two people familiar with the matter, the meeting included Brian Armstrong, Chris Dixon, Brad Garlinghouse and Arjun Sethi. The group discussed the importance of passing the Clarity Act, its potential implications for US jobs and economic growth, and whether it could bring crypto founders and companies back to the United States. They also talked about remaining obstacles to passage, including ethics issues, and how the White House might help secure bipartisan support.

Wall Street ended last week with its strongest weekly advance since mid-April as technology shares rebounded and rate expectations adjusted after a weaker-than-expected US jobs report. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average both closed at record highs, while the Nasdaq led gains for the week. Attention has now moved to whether this week’s inflation data can justify current market pricing for rates. According to Chaoxiang Research, the latest US nonfarm payrolls report showed a decline of 23,000 jobs in July, versus expectations for an increase of 80,000, while May and June were revised down by a combined 103,000. That pushed the probability of a September rate hike down to about 44% and eased pressure on technology valuations as the two-year Treasury yield and the US dollar both fell. Markets are also tracking developments around talks tied to shipping access through the Strait of Hormuz, Berkshire Hathaway’s capital deployment, and a temporary US government funding bill. This week’s calendar includes July CPI on Wednesday, PPI and jobless claims on Thursday, and retail sales on Friday, alongside earnings from Rocket Lab, CoreWeave, Lumentum, Cisco and Applied Materials. Oil prices, AI-related earnings and inflation prints are expected to drive trading through the week.

US nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 in July, well below expectations. The unemployment rate still edged down to 4.1%, a move tied to a 0.7 percentage-point drop in the labor force participation rate since the start of the year. Thomas Ryan of Capital Economics said the weakness could prompt Fed officials to reassess labor-market health, while Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge called the report “extremely ugly.” Markets reacted by lifting stock futures and pushing Treasury yields lower, as traders scaled back the odds of a September rate hike to 44% from 55% on Thursday, according to CME tools.

The July US nonfarm payrolls report is scheduled for release tonight at 20:30, and markets are looking for a rebound in hiring. The median expectation is 80,000 new jobs, above June's 57,000 increase, while the unemployment rate is projected to hold at 4.2%. Average hourly earnings are expected to remain at 3.5% on the year and 0.3% on the month. ADP private payrolls, a closely watched signal, rose just 44,000 this week, pointing to a softer picture. A Reuters poll puts the consensus at 80,000, and a separate Dow Jones Newswires and Wall Street Journal survey shows an average estimate of 83,000. Goldman Sachs economists caution that July readings often miss market expectations, and prior months' job growth has been subject to sizable revisions. Behind the stable jobless rate, labor force participation has dropped to its lowest level since 2021. The latest private-sector employment data suggests companies are less eager to hire. Labor market resilience now comes more from supply and demand cooling together than from stronger recruitment.

QCP Capital said Bitcoin has bounced from a low near $62,500 earlier this week to trade around $64,000. The more striking aspect is the pressure the market absorbed: Strategy sold 1,638 BTC worth roughly $105 million, and reported losses from the Coldcard security incident have climbed to about $110 million. Neither triggered a sustained breakdown. Options markets stayed calm, with front-end implied volatility near the low end of its recent range and downside skew easing. Macro data points were mixed — US manufacturing strengthened in July while labor indicators softened, with JOLTS job openings falling to 7.36 million and ADP private payrolls adding just 44,000. All eyes are on today's US jobs report. Brent crude pushed back above $83 on Strait of Hormuz uncertainty, and Japan remains a liquidity variable as the BOJ still holds roughly half of outstanding JGBs after joint intervention. QCP's takeaway: resilience is improving, but momentum remains limited. Macro liquidity, energy markets and the timeline for US digital-asset legislation are the core variables to watch.

Gold climbed to a seven-week high after weak U.S. employment data and signs of a possible agreement tied to the Strait of Hormuz. Spot gold briefly reached $4,295 an ounce before easing to around $4,268 on Thursday. It marked a fourth straight day of gains. ADP said U.S. private-sector hiring slowed sharply in July, with most of the new jobs coming from health care. The softer data lowered expectations for a September Federal Reserve rate hike, which supports non-yielding bullion. The article also cited IG analyst Tony Sycamore, who said optimism over a near-finalized Middle East diplomatic breakthrough could weigh on oil prices and reduce the need for central banks to raise rates.

Bitget CFD Chief Analyst Lewis Huang said market attention has shifted back from tech earnings to US employment data and Federal Reserve policy expectations this week. In a live broadcast, Huang flagged that the nonfarm payrolls report's real test is whether unemployment, average hourly earnings and prior-month revisions together point to an 'orderly cooling' or a 'clear slowdown' in the labor market. If payrolls and wage growth both beat expectations, Huang said, markets would scale back near-term rate-cut bets, pushing Treasury yields and the dollar higher while pressuring gold and richly valued tech stocks. Conversely, if employment, wages and revisions all disappoint, Fed easing expectations would rise, lending support to gold and non-US currencies. Huang advised CFD traders not to chase the first minute after the data release, and to watch for synchronized confirmation across the two-year Treasury yield, the dollar index and gold before taking pullback entries after key levels break. The core trade, he said, is not betting on the data itself but on how it reshapes market pricing of the Fed's policy path.

Bitfinex analysts said in a new report that derivatives traders were largely washed out during Bitcoin’s late-June sell-off, leaving limited room for another wave of forced selling. After Bitcoin fell below $58,000 on July 1, average daily liquidations stayed well below this year’s typical $400 million to $500 million range, which the analysts said points to relatively low liquidation pressure even as macro shocks continued to hit the market. They argued that Bitcoin held up better than leveraged equity themes because the "fuel" for forced selling had already been exhausted. Looking ahead, the analysts expect investors to stay defensive ahead of next week’s U.S. jobs report, which they described as the next major macro catalyst after the Federal Reserve meeting. In their view, the bigger question is not whether another liquidation event is coming, but whether spot Bitcoin ETF inflows can return once the market has a clearer read on the Fed’s path. They added that traders still have not seen a signal showing institutional buyers are actively stepping in or are insensitive to price.