Bitcoin Sinks Below $76,000 as Democrats Sweep Congress

Bitcoin slid about 5% to under $76,000 after Democrats swept the House and Senate in the midterms, dragging crypto down alongside a brutal selloff in AI and chip stocks. The drop from above $80,800 unwound an overnight short squeeze, with the low near $76,100 arriving shortly after the US open.

The Nasdaq Composite tumbled as much as 3.9% into correction territory, while the S&P 500 fell about 2% and US stocks shed $2.3 trillion in the first hour. Nvidia and Broadcom lost roughly 5%, Tesla about 9%, and neocloud names CoreWeave, Nebius and IREN dropped between 9% and 13%.

Traders fear a Democratic Congress will curb the data center buildout, with UBS estimating about 30% of US capacity additions expected in 2028 could face construction pauses. That threat lands on bitcoin miners too, since many have sold coins to fund AI data centers and now trade with tech.

Leverage turned the slide into a flush, as roughly $370 million in mostly long crypto liquidations hit within an hour while ether broke below $2,300. Jobless claims of just 189,000 dampened rate-cut hopes, leaving bitcoin testing $75,000 support ahead of the October jobs report and CPI.

Arkansas Joins More Than a Dozen States Suing Kalshi

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin sued Kalshi under the state's Deceptive Trade Practices Act, accusing the prediction market of running an unregulated gambling platform for residents as young as 18. The state seeks restitution, penalties, taxes and an injunction, with Griffin saying betting on the Razorbacks is plainly gambling.

Kalshi argues its CFTC-regulated event contracts fall under exclusive federal jurisdiction, while Utah filed felony charges against its co-founders and New York seeks at least $36 billion. Federal appeals courts remain split, and New Jersey, backed by 39 states and the NFL, has asked the Supreme Court to settle it.

Crédit Mutuel Arkéa Confirms Hack Behind ZachXBT's $133 Million Alert

French bank Crédit Mutuel Arkéa confirmed a cyberattack that enabled fraudulent transfers from its own account, with the stolen funds converted into crypto through specialized platforms. The bank gave no exact figure but validated the order of magnitude of the $133 million loss flagged by ZachXBT, with client assets untouched.

ZachXBT, who first spotted the exploit on November 2, said the attacker swapped USDC for ETH, routed funds through WellWallet and Kyrrex, and converted some into Monero via Wagyu. The lender, with 5.8 million members and €211.5 billion in assets, said some funds were blocked and losses pose no threat.

Democrats Eye Crypto Bill as 27 Pro-Crypto Candidates Win

House Democrats are discussing plans to expand Maxine Waters' Crypto Investor and Consumer Bill of Rights into a broader market structure bill next Congress, journalist Eleanor Terrett reported. The proposal would hand the SEC more power to supervise crypto markets while limiting the role of the CFTC.

Stand With Crypto's endorsed candidates won 27 races and lost 12, though CoinShares' James Butterfill called Republican Bryan Steil's defeat a meaningful loss for the Clarity Act. GSR's Carlos Guzman said passing that bill has become tougher, with any deal likely needing stronger consumer protection and conflict-of-interest rules.

Data of the Day

Coinbase said it keeps more than 99% of customer assets in cold storage, protected by distributed private keys, withdrawal limits and anomaly detection, after Binance lost $6.3 billion in a breach on October 29. The exchange said it was unaffected and holds customer assets 1:1, never lending them without authorization.

Binance said it has replenished about 98% of affected assets and widened proof of reserves coverage to 44 tokens from 10, with a fresh proof taking 50 to 60 hours. Changpeng Zhao urged AI-based defenses and an industry alliance, saying the only way to fight a monster is becoming one.

More Breaking News

• Canary launched the Staked INJ ETF on Nasdaq under ticker INJC, passing net staking rewards into its value as Injective reports over $1 billion in tokenized assets.
• Zcash's NU7 upgrade will freeze about 12,226 ZEC, worth roughly $16 million, still sitting in its 2016 Sprout pool, while cutting block times from 75 seconds to 25.
• Samsung Wallet launched USDC accounts on Solana for 82 million compatible US Galaxy devices, with Bastion running the infrastructure and Coinbase holding the stablecoins as sub-custodian.
• Google could take a stake in TeraWulf's Kentucky AI project if Anthropic defaults on its 20-year, $19 billion lease for 401 megawatts of computing capacity.
• Eric Trump's American Bitcoin swung to $126 million in third-quarter net income on a $197.3 million digital asset gain, lifting its bitcoin treasury to 8,427 BTC.
• Ukraine's central bank refused to back draft crypto law No. 10225-d, warning that unsupervised foreign tokens acting as e-money could threaten the country's monetary sovereignty.
• Binance removed all API keys linked to SignalPlus after the crypto options platform reported a potential security issue, saying its own systems and user funds remain unaffected.
• Paraguayan President Santiago Peña resigned after digital lender Ueno Bank collapsed, as USDT on Bybit's Paraguay-facing P2P market traded about 13% above the central bank's dollar rate.