Bitcoin drops below $100,000 after reaching milestone for 1st time
Fernando Gutierrez-Juarez/picture alliance via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The price of bitcoin dropped below $100,000 late Thursday, just a day after topping the milestone for the first time.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency continued to slide in early trading on Friday, before recovering some of the losses.
The turmoil for bitcoin did not appear to impact other major crypto coins. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, climbed nearly 5% in early trading on Friday, exceeding $4,000 for the first time since March.
The turn of fortune for bitcoin interrupted a rally set off by the election of former President Donald Trump, who is viewed as friendly toward cryptocurrency.
Since Election Day, the price of bitcoin has climbed nearly 50%. That performance far outpaces the S&P 500, which has risen about 5% over the same period.
Bitcoin has proven highly volatile since its launch about 15 years ago.
As recently as 2021, bitcoin suffered a downturn that cut its value in half. The same thing happened a year earlier, when the initial outset of the pandemic triggered a panic among investors.
“As long as the narrative stays positive, there’s always room to grow,” Bryan Armour, the director of passive strategies research at financial firm Morningstar, told ABC News before bitcoin reached $100,000.
“It’s still a highly volatile asset,” Armour added.
A surge had propelled bitcoin past $100,000 late Wednesday, just hours after Trump nominated crypto booster Paul Atkins to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Atkins, the CEO of consulting firm Patomak Partners, serves as co-chair of the Token Alliance, a cryptocurrency advocacy organization.
Once a crypto critic, Trump has vowed to bolster the cryptocurrency sector and ease regulations enforced by the Biden administration. Trump has also promised to establish the federal government’s first National Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
In a post on Truth Social early Thursday, Trump took credit for the gains: “CONGRATULATIONS BITCOINERS!!! $100,000!!! YOU’RE WELCOME!!!.”
Trump has not spoken publicly about bitcoin since it fell below $100,000.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal appeals court on Friday rejected TikTok’s bid to overturn a law banning the platform unless the company finds a new owner. The defeat moves the app closer to a U.S. ban, which is set to take effect on Jan. 19, 2025.
TikTok had challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, arguing that a potential ban would deny American users access to a popular venue for public expression. Attorneys for the company also disputed claims that the app poses a national security risk.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against the app, which boasts more than 170 million U.S. users.
The China-based app has faced growing scrutiny from government officials over fears that user data could fall into the possession of the Chinese government and the app could be weaponized by China to spread misinformation. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has denied those claims.
In its ruling, the court found merit in security concerns about potential data collection or content manipulation undertaken by the Chinese government, referring to it by its formal name as the People’s Republic of China, or PRC.
Each of those two concerns “constitutes an independently compelling national security interest,” the court opinion said. The court cited previous instances in which the Chinese government pursued data, noting the government’s use of relationships with Chinese-owned businesses.
In a statement to ABC News on Friday, TikTok urged the Supreme Court to overrule the decision.
“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue. Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” TikTok said.
“The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025,” the company added.
There is little evidence that TikTok has shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government or that the Chinese government has asked the app to do so, cybersecurity experts previously told ABC News.
President-elect Donald Trump has voiced opposition to a potential ban of TikTok. The president is expected to try to stop the ban of TikTok after he takes office, The Washington Post reported last month, citing people familiar with his views on the matter.
The most straightforward way to reverse the policy would be a repeal of the law that enacted the ban in the first place, experts previously told ABC News.
A repeal would require passage in both houses of Congress, landing the measure on Trump’s desk for his signature.
Trump may encounter difficulty gaining support for repeal of the measure among lawmakers, however.
Congress voted in favor of the ban earlier this year. In the House of Representatives, the ban passed by an overwhelming margin of 352-65. In the Senate, 79 members voted in favor of the measure, while 18 opposed and 3 abstained.
(NEW YORK) — Much like its fellow fast food competitors slashing prices and offering special discounts to lure in customers, Arby’s is adding a new deal to its menu with its Double the Meats Meal.
For just $7, the new Double the Meats Meal includes a Double Roast Beef or Double Beef ‘N Cheddar sandwich, along with a medium fry and medium drink.
The Double Roast Beef sandwich boasts two times the amount of slowly roasted, thinly sliced-to-order, signature roast beef piled high on a toasted sesame seed bun.
The Double Beef ‘N Cheddar also piles on a double portion of roast beef, topped with cheddar sauce and zesty Red Ranch, served on a toasted onion roll.
The new deal comes on the heels of similar promotions and discounts from Arby’s competitors. In June, McDonald’s launched a $5 Meal Deal that includes a McDouble or McChicken sandwich, small french fries, a four-piece Chicken McNuggets and a small soft drink. Earlier this month, the fast food giant extended the popular deal through December.
Several other fast food chains including Burger King, Wendy’s, Starbucks and Taco Bell have rolled out comparable discounts, hoping to entice customers looking to stretch their dollars as much as possible.
(NEW YORK) — Inflation bedeviled the U.S. economy for years, but a cooldown in price increases has shifted concern toward a different foe: Unemployment.
Hiring remains solid but has slowed dramatically from a peak achieved during the nation’s rebound from the pandemic. The unemployment rate still hovers near historic lows but has climbed markedly this year.
A jumbo-sized interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve last week was viewed by some economists as an effort to fend off rising joblessness, even as Fed Chair Jerome Powell offered up reassurance.
“The U.S. economy is in good shape,” Powell said.
Mixed signals sent by the nation’s labor market pose a high-stakes question for tens of millions of jobholders as well as millions of people seeking work: Where are conditions headed from here?
Economists who spoke to ABC News disagreed sharply about the outlook.
Some acknowledged a slowdown in recent months but dismissed worries about its implications, pointing to resilient job growth and other healthy metrics that suggest the economy continues to hum. Others, however, emphasized their concerns about the trajectory of labor conditions and what it indicates about potential layoffs.
“The job market is cooling but it has not frozen up,” Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, told ABC News. “This is a situation that’s seen as relatively stable but results may vary.”
Economists widely acknowledge that the labor market has slowed. That trend doesn’t come as a surprise after a years-long period of high interest rates, which typically weigh on economic activity and company hiring, some economists told ABC News.
In 2022, the pandemic rebound triggered a blazing-hot job market that saw employers add an average of nearly 400,000 jobs per month. Over a three-month period ending in August, employers added an average of about 116,000 jobs per month.
The unemployment rate has climbed this year from 3.7% to 4.2%, though it remains relatively low by historical standards.
The sky-high job growth was bound to slow, in part because the economy lacked room for expansion after employers had hired the workers they needed and a dwindling number of unemployed people remained on the sidelines, according to Valerie Wilson, a labor economist who runs the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
“We expected job growth at some point to slow down,” Wilson said. “To me, that alone isn’t cause for concern.”
The uptick in unemployment isn’t cause for concern yet either, Wilson said, highlighting data that demonstrate strength in the labor market and across the wider economy.
The share of job holders between the ages of 25 to 54 — known as the “prime age” for workers — stands at a 23-year high. U.S. gross domestic product grew at a solid pace over three months ending in June, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data showed. A relatively low number of people has claimed unemployment benefits in recent weeks, suggesting few layoffs.
“I don’t think there’s an immediate cause for concern,” Wilson said.
Some economists disagreed. They pointed to a recession indicator known as the “Sahm Rule,” which says that a rise of 0.5 percentage points in the unemployment rate within a 12-month period typically precedes a recession.
“When it comes to the Sahm Rule, what you see in the data is when the unemployment rate starts rising, it usually has a lot of momentum and takes a while to stop,” Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at Indeed Hiring Lab, told ABC News. “That’s the concern.”
The rule’s originator, former Fed economist Claudia Sahm, has questioned whether it applies in this case, in part because unemployment remains low.
Economists who are worried also pointed to data suggesting that the employment situation may not be as strong as some contend.
Despite low unemployment, more than 10% of Americans can’t find enough work, meaning for instance that they are working part-time but want full-time jobs or have fallen out of the labor force because they’ve stopped looking for work, Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told ABC News.
“Rising unemployment is not just a blip,” Pollak said.
The exact path forward for the job market is difficult to predict, some economists said. Last week’s interest rate cut could help jumpstart economic activity, some noted; while others said such policy typically takes effect on a lag that will render it irrelevant in the near term.
“The future is uncertain,” Bunker said. “I wouldn’t say we’re moving in this great direction where everything will be completely fine. But I wouldn’t fall into the trap of saying there’s a rising unemployment rate so we’re certain to be in a recession soon.”
