Bitcoin slips below $76,000, its lowest since mid-September, as Democrats flip Senate seats and Nasdaq futures drop 2% on election night

Bitcoin spent election night drifting lower. At about 9:04pm ET it was trading just under $77,000, while Nasdaq 100 futures fell 1.5%, S&P 500 futures fell 0.7% and South Korea's Kospi dropped 2%, according to CoinDesk's live blog. By 10:37pm ET it had briefly dipped below $76,000, its lowest since September 15, and was down nearly 1.5% since midnight UTC. Nasdaq futures were by then more than 2% lower at 27,700, the weakest since July 31.

The move tracked the politics. Polymarket and Kalshi bettors were pricing a 98% chance of a Democratic Senate and a 100% chance of a Democratic House by 8:49pm ET, CoinDesk reports, and Democrats flipped Senate seats in North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Ohio through the evening. Analysts at InvestingLive attributed the risk-off tone to AI data-center scrutiny and fiscal and debt-ceiling gridlock. World Liberty Financial's WLFI token fell about 2% and the Official Trump meme coin fell more than 5% to about $1.50.

The weakness came from a higher base than past midterms. Bitcoin traded near $76,990 on Tuesday morning, about 5.2% above its 200-day average of roughly $73,169, CoinDesk's Daybook noted, whereas on the midterm election days of 2014, 2018 and 2022 it sat 35%, 9% and 22% below that line. Fortune put the price at $76,995 at 6:45am ET, down about 1% from a day earlier and about 28% below a year ago. Martin Lee, research lead at DWF Labs, told CoinDesk that "History favors BTC on a 12-month horizon," while expecting volatility in the near term. Friday's US jobs report is the next scheduled test.