In early February 2026, Eastern Standard Time, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suspended the release of the non-farm payroll data for January 2026, originally scheduled for February 6, due to a government shutdown. During the shutdown, the BLS website was reported to have stopped updating. This is the first time since 2018 that a government shutdown has caused a delay in the non-farm payroll release, breaking the market's inertia of expecting "non-farm data every first week of the month" and symbolizing the sudden withdrawal of one of the world's most critical macro reference anchors. In this critical data vacuum, how the Federal Reserve assesses employment and inflation, how the interest rate path is re-bet, and how cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are priced based on "sentiment" rather than "data" become the main issues in the market game in February.

Non-farm Suddenly Silent: How the Shutdown Cuts Off Macro Anchors

● Data Forced to Hit Pause: According to public information, the non-farm payroll data for January, originally scheduled for release on February 6, 2026, has been postponed due to the current government shutdown. Some market sources claim that the BLS website has stopped updating during the shutdown, but specific technical details have yet to be confirmed. Regarding "when non-farm will return," there is currently only a single channel claim like "February 11," which remains to be verified. In the short term, the market can only passively adapt to the data vacuum under the premise of time uncertainty.

● The Weight of Non-farm in the Macro System: Non-farm payroll data has long been regarded as the "ledger" of the U.S. labor market, directly affecting judgments about economic heat, wage pressures, and potential inflation. The Federal Reserve heavily relies on the combination of non-farm and inflation data when assessing the interest rate path, so each release can quickly reprice the federal funds futures curve, thereby influencing U.S. stocks, Treasury yields, and the dollar index, becoming one of the core anchors for the volatility of all risk assets and capital allocation.

● Memory of the 2018 Delay: The last time a government shutdown caused a non-farm delay dates back to 2018, when the market had already experienced a wave of collective anxiety about "a sudden drop in information transparency." Traders were forced to turn to various alternative indicators but still felt uneasy about the absence of official data, with volatility significantly amplified before and after the data returned. This round of shutdown triggers that memory again, forcing investors to confront the old question of "what assets are being priced without authoritative data."

Data Vacuum Period: Blind Flying Risks for the Fed and Wall Street

● Macro Outlook Weakened: The direct consequence of the non-farm absence is the weakening of the most important piece of the macro puzzle before the February FOMC meeting, making it necessary for the committee to rely more on lagging or uneven quality data to assess whether the labor market has truly cooled and whether wages are pushing inflation. This incomplete information environment increases the uncertainty of policy outcomes and amplifies the internal debate over whether to "add a knife or hold steady."

● Secondary Indicators Passively Rise: In the absence of authoritative employment data, interest rate traders and macro funds are often forced to turn to secondary indicators and high-frequency data, such as initial unemployment claims, job postings on corporate recruitment websites, and private employment reports, to construct a "substitute" employment picture. However, the coverage, statistical methods, and stability of these indicators are difficult to compare with non-farm data, leading to model outputs that are more easily driven by short-term noise, overall raising the uncertainty of trading decisions.

● Amplified Risks of Misjudgment: In an environment of data delays, both hawks and doves may be misled by their own "filters." Hawks may overestimate economic resilience and underestimate the extent of employment cooling, leading to overly hawkish interest rate expectations; doves may cling to recession narratives, amplifying sporadic weak signals into systemic turning points. Without the "monthly health report" of non-farm data to correct, any party's erroneous judgment could be magnified by market funds within weeks, creating a severe risk of expectation reversal.

Consensus Fragmentation: Long and Short Camps Rearranging Around "Interest Rate Terminal"

● Cognitive Divergence in Traditional Assets: In the absence of non-farm guidance, traditional asset investors find it difficult to reach a new consensus on the pace of rate cuts, the terminal interest rate level, and the probability of a soft landing. Some funds tend to believe that the economy remains robust and inflation is sticky, thus expecting high rates to persist longer; others view the data shutdown as a signal of "system failure," betting on a passive dovish shift in policy. The greater the divergence, the harder it becomes for asset prices to oscillate around a single main line.

● A Breeding Ground for Mispricing and Excessive Volatility: The bond market is more prone to significant yield swings in the absence of sufficient information, and the cash flow discount rate assumptions in U.S. stock valuation models are frequently modified. The dollar index oscillates repeatedly between "safe-haven demand" and "interest rate differential trading." In a phase lacking clear macro anchors, any sudden remarks or secondary indicators may be excessively interpreted by the market, leading to a significant extension of the magnitude and duration of price mispricing relative to fundamentals.

● Polarized Amplification of Crypto Narratives: In this macro noise environment, participants in the crypto market often find it easier to leverage the opportunity to strengthen their narratives. On one end is the "liquidity return" story—believing that policy will ultimately be forced to turn dovish, and liquidity easing will once again elevate crypto valuations; on the other end is the "recession hedging" logic—viewing Bitcoin as a tool to hedge traditional financial risks. These two opposing stories are amplified simultaneously, making the crypto market more like a leveraged expression of "macro sentiment" rather than a simple risk preference trade.

Crypto Market Turbulence: Volatility Premium and Sentiment Pricing Coexisting

● Amplified Sensitivity to Interest Rates and the Dollar: Historically, Bitcoin and mainstream crypto assets have shown high sensitivity to the direction of real interest rates and dollar liquidity—a decline in real interest rates and a weakening dollar often accompany rising coin prices and a recovery in risk appetite. When the non-farm shutdown leads to a blurred macro path, traders are more likely to build positions based on subjective imaginations of future easing or tightening, causing price trends and volatility to be pushed higher by sentiment in the absence of "hard data calibration."

● Derivatives Driven by Emotion: During periods of heightened macro noise, the implied volatility in the options market often reacts first, with IV elevation reflecting uncertainty premiums rather than purely directional bets. Similarly, perpetual contract funding rates frequently oscillate between positive and negative, with short-term funds utilizing social media sentiment and macro anecdotes for rolling games, making derivatives pricing easily dominated by "story density" rather than based on verifiable data trends.

● The Value of Alternative Signals Elevated: In the window period of authoritative macro data absence, the importance of on-chain and off-chain capital flow information significantly increases. Indicators such as large on-chain transfers, the activity of over-the-counter bulk transactions, and changes in the supply of dollar-pegged assets like USDT/USDC can provide traders with clues about whether "real capital is entering or exiting." Compared to price fluctuations that are easily contaminated by narratives, these indicators at the capital and supply level are more valuable during the data vacuum period.

Time Difference Game: Two Battles Before and After the Return of New Data

● Rumors and Uncertainty of New Release Dates: There are already claims in the market that "non-farm may be released on February 11," but this information currently comes from a single social media channel and has not been officially confirmed, so it can only be treated as a rumor. Once the actual release time is confirmed, it means that this round of data vacuum period enters the "countdown" stage, and before that, all trading plans built around specific dates face the risk of time assumption errors.

● Temporal Dislocation of Emotion and Reality: Regarding the non-farm delay, the market is effectively split into two trading segments: the first half is a "blind flying period" based on emotion and assumptions, where those who dare to bet on macro turning points are more actively utilizing volatility; the second half is the "reality calibration" after the data returns, where all expectations will be repriced, and the erroneous party must close positions or chase prices in the opposite direction within a short time. This time difference game makes some funds more inclined to "finish the story" in advance, leaving the cost of verification to themselves or the next buyer after the data is released.

● Employment Surprises and Re-shuffling of Interest Rate Narratives: Once non-farm truly returns, if the employment data is significantly stronger than expected, the narrative of "rapid dovish turn and liquidity unlocking" quietly fermenting in the crypto market will face a significant backlash, and expectations for high rates to persist longer will suppress valuations and risk appetite; conversely, if employment is significantly weaker than expected, recession fears will be amplified alongside hopes for rate cuts. For Bitcoin, this could either reinforce its positioning as an "asset benefiting from monetary easing" or suppress medium- to long-term allocation willingness due to "economic hard landing risks."

A Double-Edged Sword of Crypto Narratives Under the Transparency Crisis

The government shutdown leading to the non-farm delay is not just a technical statistical event but a short-term crisis regarding economic transparency and market pricing power: when the world's most important employment data is forced to be absent, price discovery shifts from "data-driven" back to "emotion-driven," with both traditional and crypto assets searching for new anchors in a semi-blind state. For the crypto market, this macro vacuum period amplifies volatility opportunities, providing a stage for traders adept at leveraging emotion and leverage; on the other hand, it also increases the systemic risk of erroneous narratives being massively amplified and leveraged liquidations being triggered in a chain reaction. A more robust strategy is to control leverage levels and reduce bets on a single macro story before data recovery, focusing more on observing alternative signals such as on-chain and capital flows, and responding to uncertainty through continuous verification and hypothesis correction, rather than attempting to play the "prophet" at the moment of most scarce information.

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