Bitcoin’s recovery after the reported Binance hack and U.S. midterm elections pointed to market resilience, according to analysts cited by The Block. The evidence, however, centered on prices, derivatives positioning and custody options—not growth in crypto users or sustained network usage.
Source publication time: November 5, 2026, at 04:08:56 UTC+8. The market snapshot below refers to Wednesday, November 4, in the original report.
Prices recover as traders adjust positions
Bitcoin recovered its post-hack losses and moved toward $81,000 after Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections, which the report said returned control of both chambers of Congress to Democrats. By Wednesday afternoon, bitcoin was up 3.5% at $80,500. Ethereum gained nearly 6% to $2,433, while Solana and XRP each rose about 2.5% on the day.
Nexo analysts said futures initially fell as much as 2.5% during early election counts before recovering fully. They interpreted that reversal as investors treating the result as greater clarity rather than a change to the growth outlook.
Derivatives activity suggested repositioning rather than a comparable expansion in leverage, according to Nexo:
- Crypto futures volume increased 27%, while open interest rose just 3%.
- Bitcoin open interest grew more slowly than its price.
- Roughly $469 million in leveraged positions were liquidated.
- Market orders shifted from a seller bias the previous day to a slight net buying bias, while the most actively traded bitcoin options were predominantly calls.
The source did not specify comparison windows for the futures-volume and open-interest changes. Those figures describe trading activity, not new users or adoption.
Crypto-linked equities also advanced. Strategy and Coinbase gained about 6% each, and Strategy’s variable-rate perpetual preferred stock, STRC, reached $100 for the first time since May. Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said Wednesday that “the case for holding Bitcoin crosses party lines.” Block rose 15% following its earnings report, and bitcoin treasury firm Strive gained roughly 12%. The Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin fell 17%.
What the hack comparison does—and does not—show
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan argued that the relatively muted response to the Binance breach reflected a more mature industry and improved security infrastructure.
In a weekly memo, Hougan examined the 10 largest crypto-related hacks in history. Bitcoin finished higher over the following 30 days in five cases and lower in five. That split suggested no consistent relationship between major hacks and bitcoin’s subsequent price performance; it did not establish that security incidents are harmless.
Hougan said bitcoin’s roughly 4% decline following the Binance breach was broadly consistent with moves in other risk assets. He also distinguished the exchange breach from a compromise of the Bitcoin network: the stolen crypto, he wrote, had been held in online hot wallets at a large, integrated exchange.
He pointed to institutional custodians, cold storage and spot bitcoin ETFs as more secure alternatives. In particular, he highlighted ETFs’ offline storage arrangements and multiple withdrawal approvals and restrictions. These were Hougan’s assessments of custody infrastructure, not evidence of user growth or retention.
What analysts were watching next
Matt Mena, crypto research strategist at 21Shares, also described the market’s response as encouraging. In a Tuesday report, he characterized the breach as the largest hack in crypto history and said protocols continued operating while banks, payment networks and asset managers continued developing onchain products and regulators continued writing rules.
For November, Mena identified four areas to monitor: whether bitcoin held $76,000–$78,000 and sustained a recovery above $80,000–$82,000; Binance’s progress on withdrawals and demonstrating reserves; credit spreads, oil prices and long-end Treasury yields; and whether ETF inflows returned.
Those are market and infrastructure checkpoints, not proof of durable adoption. The report supplied no user counts, retention measures or quantified network-usage growth with which to assess that question.
