Americans vote on Tuesday 3 November in midterm elections that will decide control of both chambers of Congress, and traders have started asking whether bitcoin “does something” around US elections. Prediction markets put a Democratic House at 92%–94% and a Democratic Senate at 69% as of 30 October (CryptoTicker, citing Oddschecker), and the fate of the CLARITY Act, the crypto market-structure bill that failed a Senate procedural vote 49–50 on 15 September, depends on who wins. We checked what bitcoin actually did after the previous six US elections. The short answer: there is no reliable direction, but there has been unusually large movement, and the three midterms we can measure were the weak ones.
The six elections
Bitcoin’s Yahoo Finance daily series starts on 17 September 2014, so the first US election it covers is the 4 November 2014 midterm. Since then there have been three midterms (2014, 2018, 2022) and three presidential elections (2016, 2020, 2024). For each, we took the close on the day before Election Day and measured the change to the close 1, 7 and 30 days after Election Day (so the longest window spans 31 days).
| Election | Base close (day before) | +1 day | +7 days | +30 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midterm, 4 Nov 2014 | $327.55 | +3.6% | +12.3% | +12.8% |
| Presidential, 8 Nov 2016 | $703.13 | +2.9% | +1.2% | +9.6% |
| Midterm, 6 Nov 2018 | $6,419.66 | +1.7% | −0.9% | −45.2% |
| Presidential, 3 Nov 2020 | $13,550.49 | +4.3% | +12.8% | +43.5% |
| Midterm, 8 Nov 2022 | $20,602.81 | −22.9% | −18.0% | −16.4% |
| Presidential, 5 Nov 2024 | $67,811.51 | +11.5% | +29.7% | +42.4% |
The 30-day column matches the figures in CryptoTicker’s published table (+12.8%, +9.6%, −45.2%, +43.5%, −16.4%, +42.4%), an independent check on our calculation (CryptoTicker). Four of the six were higher, with a mean of +7.8% and a median of +11.2%. The three midterms were +12.8%, −45.2% and −16.4%, a mean of −16.3%. That sounds like a pattern; it is closer to two unrelated shocks. The 2022 column is dominated by the collapse of FTX, which began in the week of the election; CryptoTicker makes the same point, saying the moves were driven mainly by market events rather than the vote.
Is +7.8% different from any other month?
To see whether the election windows differ from an ordinary window, we compared them with every 31-day bitcoin window in the same data. There are 4,397 of them, starting each day from 17 September 2014. Bitcoin rose in 57.3% of them, with a mean of +6.1% and a median of +3.0%. So an average of +7.8% after elections is not meaningfully different from the average of all windows: drawing six random windows would match or beat a +7.8% mean about 40% of the time (a permutation test with 4,000 draws, p≈0.40). On direction, the election windows tell us nothing.
The size of the moves is another matter. Four of the six election windows (67%) moved at least 16% in one direction or the other, against 38.2% of all windows. Measured as the average distance from the all-window mean, the election windows were 26.3 percentage points away, and random sets of six windows were that far away only about 7.6% of the time (same method, p≈0.076). With six observations, we call this suggestive, not proven. It fits what traders expect of a period with an uncertain political outcome and a heavy macro calendar, but the 2022 fall coincided with the FTX collapse, and we have not tied any of the other large moves to the vote itself.
| Measure (31-day windows) | All windows since Sep 2014 | Six election windows |
|---|---|---|
| Number | 4,397 | 6 |
| Share higher | 57.3% | 67% (4 of 6) |
| Mean / median change | +6.1% / +3.0% | +7.8% / +11.2% |
| Share moving ≥16% either way | 38.2% | 67% (4 of 6) |
| Midterms only (3) | — | +12.8%, −45.2%, −16.4% (mean −16.3%) |
Video: VirtualBacon looks at bitcoin after the last three midterms, published 21 October 2026.
What is different in 2026
Three things set this election apart from the earlier ones. First, bitcoin arrives at it after a weak month: our 30 October note put October at −7.6% against −5.3% for the Nasdaq, and the Binance theft of about $6.3 billion is still being resolved (today’s update). Second, rates are rising, not falling: the Fed held at 3.75%–4.00% on 28 October with two dissents for a hike, and markets price a December increase at about 80% (Tech-Insider, citing Reuters, 30 October). None of the earlier six elections happened while the Fed was weighing a hike. Third, crypto is itself a campaign issue: Fairshake and its two affiliated super PACs back 32 House candidates, 19 Republicans and 13 Democrats, and had about $120.4 million in cash entering September, according to CNBC as relayed by CryptoTicker. We covered the money in Crypto’s Midterm Money.
Policy outcomes depend on the result. In a Democratic House, CryptoTicker notes, Maxine Waters would be in line to chair the Financial Services Committee; a Democratic Senate would put Democrats in charge of Banking and probably require a new compromise, likely with stricter rules on officials’ crypto holdings; a Republican sweep could return the text almost unchanged, though it would still need 60 Senate votes. Any lame-duck action on CLARITY has to happen before 3 January 2027, when the bill expires. Separately, regulators are moving on their own: the SEC’s custody proposal (comments due 7 December) and the CFTC’s exchange-registration proposal (comments due 14 December) do not depend on the vote.
Video: Schwab Network on midterm-election noise and bitcoin, published 21 October 2026.
How to use this
- Treat election night as a volatility event, not a directional signal: six observations show wide swings but cannot show a reliable sign.
- Check what else is in the window: in 2022 the FTX collapse, in 2026 the jobs report on Friday 6 November and a possible December Fed hike.
- Prediction-market odds are not polls; they show where traders put money.
- We will add the 2026 outcome to this table at the +1, +7 and +30 day marks: Wednesday 4 November, Tuesday 10 November and Thursday 3 December.
Sources: CryptoTicker: Midterm Elections 2026 — What’s at Stake for Bitcoin, Tech-Insider, Yahoo Finance daily BTC-USD closes (own calculation).
Method: bitcoin prices, highs, lows and closes are Coinbase Exchange candles (UTC day) pulled by Bitcoin Mastery at about 07:05 UTC on Sunday 1 November 2026; the 1 November candle is still open at that time, so the “latest” price is the 07:03 UTC ticker (77,844.70) and the last completed daily close is 31 October (77,423.98). Index, gold, yield and long-history bitcoin figures are Yahoo Finance daily closes (US cash-session closes of Friday 30 October). Third-party figures are attributed to their source and date. Election-window returns use the Yahoo Finance BTC-USD close on the day before Election Day and on Election Day plus 1, 7 and 30 calendar days. Base-rate windows are all 31-day windows starting each day from 17 September 2014 to 1 October 2026 (4,397 windows). Permutation tests use 4,000 random draws of six windows (seed 2). Overlapping windows are not independent, so p-values are rough.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are volatile and you can lose some or all of the money you put in. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold bitcoin, any exchange-traded fund, any listed security or any other asset, and the technical levels, probabilities and scenarios discussed are descriptions of published data, not forecasts. Do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.