Crypto
One Election, Two Verdicts, and a Market That Answered in a Day
Wednesday handed crypto a green day and Thursday handed it back, and the swing tells a clear story about where this market gets its orders. Bitcoin climbed above 80,000 dollars after voters handed Democrats control of both houses of Congress, then slid below 76,000 dollars a day later as Wall Street staged its sharpest tech selloff since April 2025. One election produced two verdicts inside 24 hours, and the second verdict arrived with a wave of forced selling that washed more than a billion dollars of leveraged bets out of the market.
The Wednesday rally ran on relief. Bitcoin rose 5.7 percent to about 80,484 dollars in Asian morning trading, Ethereum jumped 5.91 percent to 2,423 dollars, and Zcash led the board with an 11.7 percent climb to about 1,318 dollars ahead of a network upgrade set to shorten confirmation times. Oil prices fell as traders priced calmer geopolitics, and the relief spread across the whole board. Spot Bitcoin ETFs added 276 million dollars of inflows on November 4, with Ethereum funds adding 43 million, a sign that the buyers who matter most were happy to step in while prices were still finding their footing.
Thursday flipped the script. The Nasdaq sank 5.5 percent to 24,315, its worst day since April 2025, and the chip index plunged 12.25 percent, its worst day in roughly six and a half years. Nvidia slid about 8 percent, Qualcomm dropped about 9.5 percent after smartphone chip sales missed estimates, and crypto miners tumbled 15 to 20 percent as traders priced a slower data center buildout under the incoming Congress. Coinbase, Circle, and BitGo each fell 10 to 15 percent, Strategy lost 9.6 percent, and Bitcoin gave back the whole Wednesday rally to trade near 75,878 dollars, with Ether down more than 7 percent near 2,237 dollars.
The forced selling told its own story. More than 1 billion dollars of crypto derivatives positions were liquidated in 24 hours, CoinGlass counted, touching about 211,000 traders, with most of the wiped positions betting on higher prices. It was the largest wipeout since late October, when Bitcoin tumbled from nearly 82,000 dollars to 76,000. Wintermute trader Jasper De Maere read the day with a cooler eye, saying crypto held up relatively well beside the AI stock rout and that broader adoption keeps strengthening the longer term outlook. Traders who piled into leverage on the Wednesday rally paid the price for the Thursday reversal, while holders who sat through both days ended the week almost exactly where they started it.
Washington supplied the plot twist. Democrats won both houses in the November 3 midterms, and the crypto market structure bill known as the CLARITY Act now faces a harder road. Senators voted 49 to 50 against advancing it in September, well short of the 60 votes needed to clear a procedural hurdle, and supporters must revive it during the lame duck session or start fresh when the Democratic Congress takes office in January. Analysts expect the existing framework to stay largely in place, with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission writing new crypto market rules under powers it already holds. The agency published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on October 5, and final rules look likelier in 2027 than this year.
While Washington deliberates, the plumbing keeps getting built. Moscow Exchange confirmed a December 1 launch for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT trading, giving Russian institutions a regulated venue inside the country's largest exchange. The date is a target rather than a guarantee, with fees, custody, and participant rules still to be published, and it still marks the largest exchange in a major economy opening its doors to spot crypto. Add the ETF inflows, the Zcash upgrade, and the steady drumbeat of institutional custody announcements, and the week reads very differently from the price chart. Prices swung on politics, and the infrastructure kept moving in one direction.
For readers, the lesson of the week is a practical one. Bitcoin at 76,000 dollars with fresh ETF inflows and a regulated Moscow venue on the calendar is a very different asset from Bitcoin at 76,000 dollars in a vacuum, and the market keeps proving that the two days around an election say more about leverage than about the asset itself. Watch the 75,000 dollar level that buyers defended twice this week, watch the ETF flow numbers each morning, and watch the lame duck session for the first real test of the CLARITY Act under the incoming Congress. The builders are building through the noise, and the noise keeps getting louder.
Quick answers
What is this story about?
Wednesday handed crypto a green day and Thursday handed it back, and the swing tells a clear story about where this market gets its orders. Bitcoin climbed above 80,000 dollars after voters handed Democrats control of both houses of Congress, then slid below 76,000 dollars a day later as Wall Street staged its sharpest tech selloff since April 2025. One election produced two verdicts inside 24 hours, and the second verdict arrived with a wave of forced selling that washed more than a billion dollars of leveraged bets out of the market.
Why does this story matter?
For readers, the lesson of the week is a practical one. Bitcoin at 76,000 dollars with fresh ETF inflows and a regulated Moscow venue on the calendar is a very different asset from Bitcoin at 76,000 dollars in a vacuum, and the market keeps proving that the two days around an election say more about leverage than about the asset itself. Watch the 75,000 dollar level that buyers defended twice this week, watch the ETF flow numbers each morning, and watch the lame duck session for the first real test of the CLARITY Act under the incoming Congress. The builders are building through the noise, and the noise keeps getting louder.
Sources
- CoinDesk, Bitcoin falls below 76,000 dollars as AI stock rout hits crypto stocks
- CoinDesk, Bitcoin holds above 80,000 dollars as Zcash jumps 12 percent in post election rebound
- PYMNTS, Crypto faces tougher Congress as financial pressures mount
- Financier News, Moscow Exchange sets December 1 Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT launch
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