There are weeks when the price of bitcoin is the least interesting piece of information: between the American election night and a CFTC statement, the regulatory picture moved more than the market.

A vote that changes the calendar

The Associated Press, the BBC, NBC and Fox agree: the Democrats have won a majority in the Senate, flipping Republican seats in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas and Iowa. The seat counts still diverge — 51 for Cointelegraph, 52 for the BBC — and there is no point fixing on a figure.

For the crypto sector the consequence is concrete. The CLARITY Act, the market structure bill, failed its procedural vote in the Senate 49 to 50 in September, and if it does not pass by January the next Congress starts from scratch. Jerome de Tychey, president of Ethereum France, put it to Cointelegraph: “nothing will pass without bipartisan support.” The risk he flags is political, not technical: that crypto regulation locks itself along party lines and stays stuck for years.

The CFTC opens perpetuals on single stocks

While politics changed hands, the CFTC published release 9319-26: perpetual futures on individual equities can be traded, for the first time, on venues registered with the CFTC and at the same time registered with the SEC as national securities exchanges for security futures. It is chairman Michael S. Selig who signs the statement, with an explicit argument: better to bring these products “inside our regulated markets” than leave American investors on unregulated offshore venues.

Two clarifications the headline does not carry: the CFTC named neither the platforms nor the launch dates, and the perimeter is not that of crypto exchanges but that of dual-registered markets. The perpetual, born in crypto, enters the American equity market through the door of regulation, not the door of innovation.

A week of thefts

On the security front, the tally is heavy. Mercado Bitcoin, the largest Brazilian exchange, suffered an attack on its hot wallets across at least ten blockchains on 2 November. The figures do not agree: the exchange says around 38 million dollars, Hypernative over 40, Arkham at least 46, Chainalysis around 49. Eleven million were frozen with the help of Tether, Circle, Paxos and Chainalysis; Tether alone blocked over 4.5 million in USDT. The company says customers will not pay the bill, but a promise is not yet a refund paid out.

Shortly before, ZachXBT had identified Crédit Mutuel Arkéa as the alleged victim of a theft of over 133 million dollars, with losses possibly higher once over-the-counter activity is counted. The bank has not confirmed, French authorities have not commented, and the reconstructed sequence describes withdrawals from exchange accounts, not compromised private keys. Three cases in one week say one simple thing: the weak link is not the blockchain, it is whoever holds the keys on someone else’s behalf.

Verified sources: CFTC, release 9319-26 and chairman Selig’s statement (3 November 2026); Cointelegraph, “Democrats claim control of the US Senate” (3 November 2026); AP, BBC, NBC News, NPR and Fox News, 2026 midterm results (read on 4 November 2026); Decrypt, “Mercado Bitcoin will refund users after a $40 million hack” (3 November 2026); The Block and BeInCrypto, on the Crédit Mutuel Arkéa case (3 November 2026).