Bitcoin rally takes a breather ahead of key U.S. employment data: Crypto Week Ahead

Crypto bulls are taking a breather following a strong rally, with bitcoin (BTC) down roughly 1% since Friday and dropping more than 2% over the last 24 hours as it pulls back from the $84,000 threshold.

Investors are digesting the recent price surge while turning their focus to a packed macro slate following last week's hawkish Federal Reserve rate hike, which raised the benchmark target rate to 4%.

The macro calendar centers on midweek U.S. jobless claims alongside key updates on housing and durable goods figures. Meanwhile, cross-asset markets continue to evaluate the broader policy path in the wake of recent rate decisions from the Bank of Japan and Bank of England.

What to Watch

(All times ET)

• Crypto
  • Sept. 28: Solana opens the activation window for its major Alpenglow consensus upgrade, replacing TowerBFT with the new Votor protocol to reduce voting transaction overhead across the network.
• Macro
  • Sept. 29, 9:00 a.m.: U.S. S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index YoY for July est. 2.2% (Prev. 2.1%)
  • Sept. 30, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. GDP Growth Rate QoQ Final for Q2 est. 1.5% (Prev. 2.1%)
  • Sept. 30, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Core PCE Price Index MoM for August est. 0.3% (Prev. 0.2%)
  • Oct. 1, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims for period ending Sept. 26 est. 199K (Prev. 197K)
  • Oct. 1, 10:00 a.m.:U.S. ISM Manufacturing PMI for September est. 54.8 (Prev. 54.6)
  • Oct. 2, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls for September est. 84K (Prev. 162K)
  • Oct. 2, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Average Hourly Earnings MoM for September est. 0.3% (Prev. 0.3%)
• Earnings
  • None scheduled

Token Events

• Governance votes and calls
  • World Liberty Financial is holding a preliminary vote on its Governance Engagement Incentive Program, proposing a launch date of Oct. 1 to promote community voter participation through token rewards. Voting for the initiative concludes on Sept. 28.
  • Balancer, which faces a potential shutdown, is voting on a protocol reincarnation proposal to fork its core architecture and transition to a new ecosystem. Voting ends Sept. 29.
  • Decentraland is voting on a security response proposal following the theft of over 1,000 Decentraland Names from user accounts. The proposal requests an immediate investigation and calls for a temporary freeze or suspension of all smart-contract activity, affected accounts and secondary transfers related to Decentraland Names to prevent further transfers. Voting ends Oct. 1.
• Unlocks
  • Sept. 28: Canton (CC) to unlock 0.38% of its circulating supply worth $20.7 million.
  • Sept. 29: Falcon Finance (FF) to unlock 2.39% of its circulating supply worth $9.73 million.
• Token launches
  • No confirmed major token launches.

Conferences

• Sept. 29-Oct. 1: Korea Blockchain Week (Seoul)