Bitcoin jumps ahead of the “vote count”

Bitcoin pulled a bit of a plot twist before anyone even started counting ballots. On the morning of November 3, BTC was trading around $76,990—about $3,821 above its 200-day moving average. And here’s the weird part: in each of the previous three U.S. midterm election days, Bitcoin was still chilling below that same line.

The 200-day average is the big level to watch

Because of that, investors have a clearer “tell” to track this week than the comfy-but-random $77,000 headline number. Roughly $73,169 is the 200-day average, and that’s the spot where Bitcoin’s longer-term trend has been leaning toward the buyers lately.

Now the market’s about to find out whether that edge can survive two major tests: the midterm results and Friday’s U.S. jobs report.

How unusual is this setup, really?

Let’s put things in perspective. Back at the 2022 midterms, Bitcoin was trading roughly 22% below its 200-day average. This time around—Tuesday morning—BTC was about 5.2% above it.

That’s a 27.2-percentage-point swing in how Bitcoin sits compared to its own longer-term trend. Even 2018 (the strongest of the previous midterm readings) came in about 9% below the line.

It’s not just about $77,000 (but everyone loves that number)

The difference really matters, even though BTC recently dipped under $77,000. Moving from $77,000 down to $76,990 is, in the grand scheme of things, basically a rounding error—just ten bucks. But at that same price, Bitcoin still had nearly $3,800 of wiggle room above the 200-day average.

So depending on which metric you care about, the story can sound totally different—even if the price barely “moved” in headline terms. Classic market drama.

Bitcoin has often risen a year after midterms

Here’s the pattern that makes traders raise their eyebrows: Bitcoin finished higher one year after each of the 2014, 2018, and 2022 midterms. Across those three periods, the average one-year gain was about 53.7%, measured from the election-day close to the close a year later.

(That comparison skips 2010, when the market was so small that any big percentage jump would’ve been a little misleading.)

The real question: can this recovery last?

What’s interesting isn’t just that Bitcoin rallied afterward—it’s where the rally started. In all three prior cases, investors came into election day with BTC still below its long-term average.

This year is different: part of the rebound has already happened. That raises the question of whether 2026 can continue the recovery after the midterms, instead of being another “wait and see what happens later” situation.

Still, it’s tough to turn those past averages into a clean price target, because the prior midterm years also lined up at similar points in Bitcoin’s four-year halving cycle—so history might not be as copy-paste as we’d like.

Friday is circled on the calendar

The date to mark is Friday, November 6, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. That’s when the Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release October’s employment report.

Payroll numbers matter because they give traders fresh ammo to weigh against expectations for Federal Reserve interest rates. And for Bitcoin, it’s a second test in the same week—after the market has had time to digest the election results.

What would a “win” look like for Bitcoin?

There’s a simple way to read Friday’s reaction. If BTC briefly snaps back to $77,000, that’ll make for an easy headline—dramatic, satisfying, and probably temporary.

But the more meaningful test is whether Bitcoin can finish the week above its updated 200-day average after both the election and the jobs report. If it does, investors will have something more useful than vibes: evidence that Bitcoin’s strongest midterm starting position since 2014 actually held up through two very different challenges.