Saturday, November 7th

• Bitcoin gives back its post-election bounce

• Democrats win control of Congress

• Anchorage seeks CFTC swap dealer status

• Binance says 98% of affected assets replenished

• Bitcoin mining splits in two

• Maestro’s Bitcoin Solver Passes 450 BTC

Market Prices

Markets: Bitcoin dipped to about $75,700 on election night, then climbed back above $80,000 on Nov. 4 as the uncertainty cleared. The bounce didn't last. Bitcoin fell 6% to about $75,700 on Nov. 5 as the Nasdaq dropped 4.7% by mid-afternoon, with chip earnings and the Democratic sweep dragging AI stocks lower.

Market Updates

Democrats Win Control of Congress

After Tuesday's Democratic sweep, House Democrats are reportedly discussing their own crypto market structure bill, with "a bigger role for the SEC and a smaller one for the CFTC."

• No bill text has been released. The reported plan would build on Maxine Waters' Crypto Investor and Consumer Bill of Rights. Meanwhile, the stalled CLARITY Act dies when this Congress ends on Jan. 3 unless the lame-duck session revives it.

Anchorage Seeks CFTC Swap Dealer Status

Anchorage Digital applied to register a CFTC swap dealer, saying "institutional demand for regulated access to digital asset derivatives continues to grow."

• If approved, it plans European-style bitcoin and ether options with maturities up to one year. Demand has come from public companies holding BTC and ETH, plus asset managers and funds.

Cross River Brings Loans Onchain

Cross River Bank will tokenize loans at origination on Arbitrum with Offchain Labs, with an executive saying "Tokenization belongs at origination."

• A proof of concept is complete, and production is targeted for early 2027. Cross River stays the regulated lender, keeping its underwriting and compliance standards.

Why It Matters

The rules and the infrastructure are moving on separate tracks. The current Congress has weeks left to pass crypto legislation, and the incoming majority may take a different approach. Meanwhile, firms like Anchorage and Cross River keep building regulated products onchain. Together, the legislation and the infrastructure will shape how easily institutional capital can enter the market.

By The Numbers

98%

Binance says it has replenished about 98% of impacted token assets after the Oct. 29 hack, using its own funds. That's replacement, not recovery of the stolen coins. Its initial findings describe a months-long campaign involving compromised employee devices and a fake recruiting process. The FBI attributed the theft to North Korea's TraderTraitor group.

$1.1B

Crypto liquidations hit nearly $1.1B in 24 hours during the Nov. 5 selloff, affecting about 211,000 traders.

26

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index fell to 26 on election day, its lowest reading of the week, before recovering to 50 by Nov. 5.

The Deep Dive

Bitcoin Mining Splits in Two

The Signal

In a 10-company comparison, five public miners, several of them shifting capacity to AI, mined 47% less bitcoin through Oct. 19 than a year earlier. A second five-company group produced 16% more. Combined, the ten mined 8.9% less.

The industry is choosing lanes. On Nov. 5, the market still sold them together.

The Numbers

What Changed

• Margins tightened. Hashprice fell 17.5% in October as bitcoin dropped 7.3% and two straight difficulty increases pushed difficulty up 11.8% to 148.36T.

• Riot went big on AI. Riot signed a 15-year, 910 MW powered land lease with "a leading Frontier AI Lab", bringing its long-term contracted data center revenue to about $38B, while mining 1,637 BTC in Q3, up from 1,406 a year earlier.

• Risk-off hit both lanes. On Nov. 5, IREN closed down about 17%, then rose more than 4% after hours on a revenue beat, after saying Microsoft-requested network design changes delayed some deliveries, with no financial penalties. American Bitcoin fell 17% despite $126M in Q3 net income, most of it from a $197.3M gain on digital assets.

The Read

• Riot says it does "not currently anticipate issuing equity to fund our announced projects." Instead, it's selling far more bitcoin than it mines, "primarily to fund data center development." Its treasury is funding the pivot.

• The lanes blur. Riot sits in the group still growing output, and it also just signed one of the largest AI leases of any miner.

• The market is still struggling to tell the lanes apart. American Bitcoin stayed focused on mining and still fell about 17%, roughly matching IREN.

Watch Next

• MARA's Q3 results on Nov. 9

• The difficulty adjustment around Nov. 13, estimated near -3%

• How Riot funds its AI buildout with its bitcoin treasury down to 2,418 BTC

Maestro Updates

Bitcoin Solver Passes 450 BTC

Maestro's Bitcoin Solver has processed 450 BTC in all-time swap volume, with yield paid in bitcoin.

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