From Cointelegraph · By William Suberg
Bitcoin (BTC) held above its 100-day moving average on Monday ahead of US midterm elections, jobs data and earnings from Apple and Palantir.
Key points:
Kalshi traders put Democrats’ chances of winning control of the House at 93.6% ahead of Tuesday’s US midterm elections.
US nonfarm payrolls are forecast to rise by 65,000 in October as markets favor a December Fed rate hike.
Bitcoin holds its 100-day moving average as trader Rekt Capital compares its price chart with the 2023 recovery.
Midterms follow Bitcoin’s weakest October since 2014
Tuesday’s US midterm elections will determine control of Congress, with prediction market traders heavily favoring a Democratic victory in the House of Representatives.
Kalshi put the probability of Democrats winning the House at 93.6% as of Monday.
President Donald Trump said he would use his veto power if Democrats took control of Congress.
“I guess I’ll become Mr Veto. They’ll be sending stuff up. You veto it,” he said, according to the New York Post.
US midterm elections odds (screenshot). Source: Kalshi
Bitcoin ended the fourth quarter lower in each of the past three US midterm election years, falling 17.3% in 2014, 43.5% in 2018 and 14.8% in 2022. All three periods coincided with Bitcoin bear markets.
Benjamin Cowen, founder and CEO of crypto analytics platform IntoTheCryptoverse, suggested that the midterms can function as a cue to increase BTC exposure due to their short-term bearish impact on price.
“Usually the Q4 dump of midterm years just provide opportunities to buy for those who sold long ago,” he said Friday on X.
In July, Cowen referenced Bitcoin bear-market bottoms coinciding with the second half of midterm years.
BTC/USD was down 6.4% for the quarter as of Monday, after its weakest October since 2014, according to CoinGlass.
BTC/USD liquidation heatmap. Source: CoinGlass
Jobs data and tech earnings test market expectations
September US job openings data are due Tuesday, followed by October’s nonfarm payrolls report on Friday.
Payrolls are expected to rise by 65,000, after the economy added 29,000 jobs in September, below forecasts for 84,000. Such an outcome notionally increases the odds of dovish policy signals from the Federal Reserve, which is in turn bullish for crypto and risk-asset liquidity.
Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack and Fed Governor Michelle Bowman are among the officials due to speak this week.
Data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool currently shows that markets expect the Fed to raise interest rates by 0.25 percentage points at the December meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The odds of such an outcome have sat between 67% and 75% for the past month.