Summary Bitcoin's rally following the Iran conflict appears largely speculative. A meaningful correction toward $60,000 is likely once geopolitical tensions stabilize or resolve. The Federal Reserve may recognize that recent weakness in payroll data stems from structural or external factors beyond monetary policy or the healthcare strike. Recent JOLTS data suggests the labor market remains relatively resilient, only marginally weaker than its pre-pandemic peak. Supporting indicators continue to point toward underlying strength in employment conditions. A prolonged or escalating conflict involving Iran represents the primary risk to this thesis. But inflationary pressures could lead to further rate hikes before cuts to stimulate growth. Overall, I maintain a strong bearish outlook on Bitcoin, with a long-term price target of $30,000 and a near-term downside move toward $60,000. A recent claim on Binance Square suggested that the Fed may cut rates and cause Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) to rally this month due to weak payroll data. Not an unreasonable assertion because SPY dropped 1.3% when those payroll numbers were released, meaning that markets had not priced in a negative payroll surprise. However, I don't believe the Fed will cut rates because February's job loss may have been due to reasons other than a weak economy. Not only that, once readers comprehend the primary factors behind those weak payrolls, they will also understand why Chairman Powell will most likely mention that the labor market is somewhat out of the Fed's control. And just to be clear, the primary reason is not the healthcare strike . If Powell does deliver statements along those lines, it would clearly indicate a move towards a more hawkish stance, or higher-for-longer rates. BTC's Recent Rally Before delving into a discussion on payrolls, though, I think it would be wise to provide a quick explanation on why I believe that BTC's rally since the beginning of the Iran war is likely speculative, implying that the coin will revert to below $60,000 if and when this conflict quiets down. My reasoning is deceivingly simple: BTC is a risk-on asset and thus should not appreciate in a war environment, which is inherently risk-off. As a matter of fact, it should not have appreciated at all because gold, the quintessential risk-off asset, has not demonstrated an equivalent rally. An assertion that risk premiums were already priced into gold may act as a rebuttal to my logic. But stock markets slumped, and 10-year treasury yields increased ~7.5% from a low of 3.945% on February 27 to a high of 4.269% on March 16. Those movements should not have occurred if financial models had already accounted for risks associated with the war. As a result, if and when this war is over, BTC will most likely witness a strong correction. Not an Exact Science Now that's out of the way, let's talk about payroll numbers. To begin with, I want to state that investors should not blindly and singularly use early payroll numbers to predict rate cut decisions. Especially because average monthly corrections to early payroll numbers (both additions and subtractions) have averaged 57,000 since records began in 1979. Moreover, according to the BLS's Employment Situation technical notes , under the section titled Reliability of the Estimates , early payroll numbers can have an error of +/- 122,000. If we were to apply that error range to the -92,000 number for February 2025, then actual payrolls could be anywhere in the range of -214,000 and +30,000. Add to that the fact that February was also a month of multiple peculiar circumstances. First, severe winter weather conditions prevailed during the entire month, beginning sometime around January 30 with the North American bomb cyclone and ending with the Winter Storm Hernando on February 24. With such extreme weather conditions, it is reasonable to assume that many did not show up for work and thus were not on the payroll. Second, and as already mentioned earlier, February was also the month of the massive Kaiser Permanente strike, during which 30,000 clinical workers were away from their desks. An adjustment for this number alone should push payrolls up by ~33%. The ICE Effect However, I don't believe that one-off irregular events were the reason for weak payroll numbers in February or since the start of President Trump's tenure. Precisely speaking, it is quite likely that the current administration's aggressive illegal immigration crackdown is the primary cause. As most would be aware, the crackdown intensified recently with Operation Metro Surge, when the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was deploying roughly 2,000 agents into the Twin Cities, making it the largest immigration operation ever . Following that escalation, the city of Minneapolis released a report indicating that 76,000 people—mostly immigrants—are in need of urgent relief assistance. The report also mentioned that the city experienced $47 million in lost wages because people are afraid to leave their homes. Another article by Fortune mentions that English classes for new immigrants experienced a 43% drop in enrollment—a strong indicator that immigrants were so afraid that they denied themselves essential services. The Fed's Beige Book, also called the Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions, released on March 4, 2026, presents similar evidence. Precisely speaking, comments by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston support the claim that immigrants were living in fear. Please refer to pages five, seven, twenty-nine, thirty-six, thirty-seven, and thirty-eight for discussions on the effects of immigration enforcement on labor supply. But occurrences in a few states do not mean that the problem was nationwide, right? Unfortunately, there's evidence to suggest that this sense of fear was ubiquitous. For instance, the headline of an article released on February 3, 2026, states that immigrants nationwide were so afraid to leave their homes that they voluntarily denied themselves medical treatment. Another article released two weeks later reports that healthcare providers are seeing a decline in patient numbers not observed since the pandemic. With those reports at hand, I think it's safe to say that since people were not leaving their homes for critical medical care, they were definitely not doing so to earn wages. In fact, undocumented immigrants have been afraid for a while, if one were to go by this article released in June 2025. Labor Market Not Weak JOLTS data for the month of January was released on March 13. Results were better than expected, with the job openings rate rising from 4.0% to 4.2% and only minor changes in hiring and layoff rates. None of those numbers is alarming enough to indicate that the labor market is weak. In fact, 6,946,000 openings are only ~8% lower than the pre-pandemic peak of 7,594,000 seen in November 2018, which is to say that they are among the highest the U.S. has ever witnessed if one were to exclude the extreme numbers seen during and after the pandemic. Finally, initial claims on March 12, 2026, were only 213,000 —a number within the 200,000 to 275,000 range that has been observed since December 2021. Since initial claims is an early indicator of labor market problems due to a weak economy, it can be assumed that there are no imminent recessionary threats. Closing Thoughts I expect things to improve further because while there are reasons to believe that Trump's tariff policy was not the primary, or the only, cause of weak payrolls, it was definitely one of the causes. For instance, a report by CNBC indicates that tariffs and associated costs led to an increase in layoffs, supported by another study conducted by the Kansas City Fed. All this is to say that since uncertainties associated with tariff policy have now been decisively eliminated with the SCOTUS ruling, the labor market may also improve. With all this data and evidence taken into consideration, the Fed may wonder, were rate cuts really necessary to begin with? Can those 75 bps cuts lead to unwanted consequences? At the very least, it may cause Powell to move away from asserting that the employment numbers are unusual—something that he has been saying for the past few FOMC meetings. Furthermore, he may also indicate that the Fed will take a more cautious approach going forward, which is just another way of saying "higher for longer." Also, uncertainties currently surrounding the Iran conflict and its effects on inflation will add to the Fed's concerns. It is quite reasonable to say that if the conflict were to continue longer than expected, we would likely see rising inflation for at least the first half of 2026. Given that nominal rates affect real yields, and real yields represent the opportunity cost associated with holding non-yielding assets, I can convincingly say that BTC is as vulnerable, or even more so, than when the crypto winter began in October 2025. As a result, I maintain my 'strong sell' rating for BTC with the long-term price target of $30,000. And needless to say, this 'strong sell' recommendation is not only for BTC but also for ETFs derived from it, such as the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF ( IBIT ), the ProShares Bitcoin ETF ( BITO ), the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund ( FBTC ), or corporations that are directly correlated to BTC prices, such as Strategy ( MSTR ). That said, BTC's recent rally has forced me to reassess my earlier forecast that the Fed's meeting this week will cause a drop to its next support level of $55,000. Before February 2025, the coin was struggling to break past $65,000, but right now it is trading at above $74,000. The immediate support level, therefore, should also be higher at ~$60,000. But investment analysis is a probabilistic rather than a deterministic science, meaning that there are risks to my thesis. One such risk is the extended closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which will cause the global economy to slow down and compel central banks around the globe to recommence a rate cut cycle. Such a scenario, however, is still many months away and highly contingent on how things play out with this conflict. Not only that, rate cuts following a prolonged closure of the Strait are not guaranteed because an oil supply shock usually leads to stagflation, where central banks raise rates to control inflation before stimulating growth.
