Weekly Crypto Pulse: $528M ETF Inflows Meet a Cooling US Economy

The crypto market begins the week showing broad strength as the Total Market Cap reaches $3.05 trillion (+1.10% weekly change) and the Fear & Greed Index rests at 78 (Greed), strongly skewing toward extreme optimism. While Ethereum dominance somewhat decreased to 10.8% (-0.20%), Bitcoin dominance surged to 57.55% (+0.64%). Strong individual performances in DOGE (+15.5%), RNDR (+14.1%), and ONDO (+12.3%) drove Meme Coins (+7.8%), Artificial Intelligence & Big Data (+6.9%), and Real World Assets (+6.1%) to lead. Spot institutional flows over the last week stayed net-positive, totaling +$510M in Bitcoin ETF net inflows and +$18M in Ethereum ETF net inflows. Technical levels show that ETH is trading close to $2,855 between its set $2,500 support and $3,000 resistance levels, while BTC is moving around $87,150 inside its crucial $80,000 support and $90,000 resistance range.

Released on October 2, 2026, the most recent US Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP) data gave a sharp negative surprise that added great macroeconomic background to the week. Non-farm payroll employment in September added only +29,000 jobs, far below the market consensus estimate of +90,000 and slowing sharply from the downwardly revised +133,000 count of August. At the same time, the US Unemployment Rate rose to 4.2% while Average Hourly Earnings increased to +0.13% MoM, or +3.02% YoY. This significant labor market cooling has instantly changed interest rate expectations, therefore lowering the probability of more Federal Reserve rate rises and confirming traders' expectations for a policy pause or ultimate rate cuts—a macro background usually supporting a risk-on attitude across stocks and digital asset markets.