Bitcoin Rebounds Near $78,000 After Dipping Below $76,000 as Democrats Win Congress; Traders Buy Calls

Bitcoin recovered to around $78,000 on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, after briefly falling below $76,000 overnight as results from the U.S. midterm elections showed Democrats winning control of both the House and the Senate.

The largest cryptocurrency was trading at about $78,005 as of 7:12 a.m. ET, according to Yahoo Finance data. Crypto trades around the clock, and prices can move quickly.

An overnight round trip

Bitcoin had climbed close to $78,000 late Tuesday as Americans voted, then dropped more than $2,000 as the first results came in, briefly sinking to about $75,700, CoinDesk reported. During that sell-off, S&P 500 futures fell 1.3% and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 2.3%, while the 10-year Treasury yield slid six basis points to 4.90%, CoinDesk said.

The decline reversed as the results became clear and U.S. stock futures recovered. Reuters, in a report published by Investing.com, said bitcoin briefly touched a six-week low before trading up 0.7% at $78,354 by 0841 GMT, which was 3:41 a.m. ET. Ether gained 1.4% to $2,323 at that time. A separate Investing.com report said bitcoin rose 1.9% to $78,662.7 by 5:34 a.m. ET. At 7:12 a.m. ET, ether was at about $2,314, according to Yahoo Finance data.

"Bitcoin dropped initially in response to the Democratic sweep of the midterm elections, but has since recovered as a clear outcome resolves political uncertainty," Dick Lo, founder of TDX Strategies, told CoinDesk.

Nicolas Quatravaux, head of EMEA at crypto derivatives liquidity network Paradigm, said the outcome was not a surprise, noting that prediction market Polymarket had shown a Democratic win above 75% for some time. He told CoinDesk that about $660 million in notional value of bitcoin options block trades printed on Election Day, more than double the previous day, with roughly $420 million of call options bought compared with about $105 million sold. A call option gains value if the price of the underlying asset rises.

Regulation in focus

The election carries specific stakes for the crypto industry. Investors are weighing whether a Democratic Congress could slow legislation such as the CLARITY Act, a bill that would set rules for how U.S. crypto markets are regulated. Jeff Mei, chief operating officer of crypto exchange BTSE, told CoinDesk before the vote that Democrats are against the bill.

Reuters noted that while Trump has been the most prominent advocate of lighter crypto regulation, some Democrats have also backed a light-touch approach, and that the crypto sector spent more than $300 million backing crypto-friendly candidates from both parties, in roughly equal measure, across the current and previous election cycles. During Trump's current term, Washington has created a strategic bitcoin reserve and passed a federal stablecoin law, Reuters said.

Lo told CoinDesk that a Democratic-controlled Congress is generally viewed as less favorable for pro-crypto legislation, but that divided government makes major market-unfriendly policy shifts unlikely.

Broader pressure on the market

Bitcoin remains about 41% below the record above $122,000 it reached in October 2025, and the total crypto market was valued at about $2.61 trillion, Reuters reported, citing CoinMarketCap. The overall market has lost about $300 billion in value over the past month.

Sentiment has also been hurt by the hack of the Binance exchange last week, which Reuters described as the largest heist in crypto history at about $6 billion. Reuters said Binance customers had withdrawn a net $4.72 billion from the exchange as of Tuesday since it reopened at the weekend.

Fund flows have been weak. U.S.-listed spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $515 million in outflows in October and a similar amount in the first two trading days of November, according to SoSoValue data cited by CoinDesk. LSEG Lipper data cited by Reuters showed $215 million left the largest bitcoin-backed ETFs in October, bringing year-to-date outflows to $1.84 billion.

What analysts are watching

Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, told CoinDesk that a momentum indicator suggested bitcoin was oversold and could rise toward $82,000. Lacie Zhang, research lead at Bitget Wallet, said the broader trend remains consolidative below resistance around $80,000 to $82,000, and that a more durable recovery would require bitcoin to reclaim that level while spot demand and institutional flows remain supportive.