Cryptocurrencies Slip After Democrats Win Control of Both Chambers in US Midterms

Crypto prices dipped briefly on Wednesday after Democrats secured majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the US midterm elections. For a sector that has spent heavily to push digital asset deregulation, the result matters because the legislative path just got less predictable.

1. The industry has spent more than $300 million backing crypto-friendly Democrats and Republicans across the current and previous election cycles, hoping to secure laws that US firms say would give digital assets a clearer legal footing and help the sector grow. On paper, that is political diversification; in practice, it is a bet that policy will eventually move in a friendlier direction.
2. Bitcoin briefly hit a six-week low before recovering and trading almost unchanged at 07:15 GMT at $78,070. Ether was at $2,292, up just 1%.
3. Bitcoin is down about 41% from its all-time high above $122,000 in October 2025. That has pulled the total cryptocurrency market value to about $2.61 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
4. The market has shed about $300,000 million in the last month alone, as investors shifted toward lower-risk assets such as sovereign bonds and safe-haven currencies amid rising concern over future AI returns and higher financing costs.
5. Sentiment was also hit by last week’s hack of Binance, in which $6,000 million was stolen, the largest theft in history. By Tuesday, Binance customers had withdrawn a net $4,720 million from the world’s largest crypto exchange since it reopened after the attack.

Tim Sun, researcher at HashKey, said the market may be reassessing the risk-reward balance of crypto assets, with security incidents forcing investors to review custody and infrastructure risk, while possible changes in the US political landscape could slow progress on structural crypto legislation and institutional framework development.