Bitcoin traded around $77,500 as U.S. midterm polls opened, down about 0.6% and roughly $30,000 below a year ago, with the CLARITY Act's fate on the ballot.
As polling stations opened on Tuesday morning for the U.S. midterm elections, bitcoin changed hands around $77,500 — a decline of about 0.6% for the day and some $30,000 under where it stood twelve months earlier, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data.
Control of Congress is at stake in the vote, and with it the future of the CLARITY Act, the market structure legislation that cleared the House 294-134 in July 2025 but went down 49-50 in a Senate cloture vote on Sept. 15.
Kalshi's prediction markets put Democrats at a 94% chance of winning the House and 74% for the Senate. Should Democrats take the Senate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren would likely be positioned to chair the Banking Committee. Unless Congress moves before the new session opens on Jan. 3, the bill expires and would have to be reintroduced.
Crypto organizations spent upwards of $200 million on the midterms, CNBC reported. Analysts at TD Cowen regard a Democratic sweep as both the likeliest result and the worst one for the industry; a divided Congress, by their reading, would leave space for a narrower agreement.
Price action heading into the vote has run in a single direction. Bitcoin started November around $78,500 and has given up roughly $2,000 since. October finished about 7% lower, a second consecutive October decline.
The price dropped below $80,000 on Oct. 28 for the first time in several weeks, following a hawkish Federal Reserve hold and soft earnings from Alphabet and Samsung, with roughly $356 million of leveraged positions liquidated.
A bigger shock arrived the following day. On Oct. 29, attackers the FBI links to North Korea pulled about $6.3 billion out of Binance's hot wallets — the biggest crypto theft ever recorded.
Bitcoin held up, then slid about 4% on Friday as more than $1.3 billion of leveraged positions were wiped out. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost $643.3 million that day, the heaviest single-day outflow since June 25, SoSoValue data shows. A further $399 million departed on Monday.
Late Sunday bitcoin bounced back to $78,491, then weakened again through Monday and Tuesday. Support between $76,264 and $76,476 is drawing traders' attention, coinciding with the 200-day exponential moving average. The September low of $74,967 lies beneath that.
Immediately above, the first resistance is the 50-day EMA at close to $80,800.
Monday's reading of the Crypto Fear & Greed Index was 37, putting it in "fear" territory.
Macro conditions provide scant support. On Oct. 28 the Fed left rates in a 3.75% to 4.00% range on a 10-2 vote, two officials dissenting in favor of an increase, having lifted rates in September for the first time since July 2023.
Polymarket prices a December hike at about 71%. September PCE inflation came in at 3.6% year on year, while third-quarter GDP expanded at a 3.4% annualized rate.
Early in October the 10-year Treasury yield reached 5.36%, a level last seen in 2002, before retreating to roughly 4.91% by Monday.
Energy is central to the inflation story. Brent crude slid 7.7% on Monday to $104.66 a barrel — its steepest one-day fall since July — after Iran and the U.S. indicated willingness to talk, CNBC reported.
That drop was partly undone on Tuesday, Brent returning to around $106.60 following reports of a U.S. strike on Iran's Qeshm Island. Turmoil around the Strait of Hormuz has held crude above $100 and headline inflation high, which keeps the Fed on a tightening course.
Stocks have piled on further pressure. The Nasdaq dropped 2.9% on Friday, its weakest day since June, after results from Intel and Amazon stirred doubts about AI capital spending, and it shed 5.3% across October. Through the selloff bitcoin has tracked technology shares rather than moving against them.
The schedule is crowded. Friday brings the October jobs report, with consensus near 65,000 following September's 29,000. October CPI is due on Nov. 10, then the Fed's next decision on Dec. 9. Binance's next proof-of-reserves snapshot lands on Wednesday.
Options markets look placid, Deribit's DVOL index sitting near 36.5, which suggests traders anticipate no big swings. Seasonality points the other way: in November 2018 bitcoin lost 36.6% and in November 2022 it fell 16.2% — the two most recent midterm years, both during bear markets.
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Disclaimer: this article comes from third-party media and is provided for reference only. It does not constitute investment advice. Crypto and other financial products carry significant price volatility risk, so please make your own decisions carefully.
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