Bitcoin falls as crypto liquidations top $1 billion, and more

The following article is adapted from The Block's newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.

Happy Thursday! Bitcoin has erased its post-election gains as a Wall Street selloff triggered more than $1 billion in crypto liquidations.

Also in today's newsletter, the crypto industry reassesses its Washington strategy following a Democratic sweep of Congress, Eric Trump's American Bitcoin reports a $126 million quarterly profit, Samsung Wallet launches USDC accounts on Solana, and more.

Meanwhile, French bank Crédit Mutuel Arkéa confirms a cyberattack after ZachXBT flagged $133 million in suspected losses, and Arkansas sues prediction market platform Kalshi over alleged illegal gambling operations.

P.S. Don't forget to check out The Latent, our sister website covering AI. Get The Latent Daily here and all other The Block newsletters here. Also, follow The Block and The Latent on X for more updates.

Bitcoin erases post-election gains as crypto liquidations top $1 billion

Bitcoin fell 6% to around $75,700 on Thursday, while ether dropped more than 7% to $2,247, reversing Wednesday's post-election rally as a sharp selloff in U.S. technology and AI stocks spilled into crypto markets.

• The Nasdaq Composite closed down 5.5%, with Strategy and Coinbase shares each falling about 10%.
• Nearly $1.1 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours, affecting about 211,000 traders, according to CoinGlass. Around $880 million of those liquidations occurred within four hours, mostly from long positions.
• Wintermute said Wednesday's rebound was driven by short-lived optimism following the Binance hack and U.S. midterm elections, with broader macroeconomic pressures still weighing on markets.
• Wintermute identified $73,000 and $68,000 as the next levels to watch if bitcoin continues to fall, adding that it would need to convincingly reclaim and hold $80,000 before the firm turns more positive.

Democratic sweep of Congress forces crypto industry to rethink Washington strategy

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the U.S. midterm elections, raising concerns about increased oversight and the prospects for crypto legislation over the next two years.

• Crypto political action committees spent about $170 million on the midterms, according to Fortune, including tens of millions opposing former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who defeated Republican Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio.
• TD Cowen said the Clarity Act is unlikely to advance over the next two years, with Democrats also expected to investigate President Donald Trump's crypto ties, including World Liberty Financial.

Eric Trump's American Bitcoin swings to $126 million profit in Q3

American Bitcoin, the bitcoin mining company co-founded by Eric Trump, reported a $126 million net profit in the third quarter, reversing a $57.2 million loss in Q2, helped by a $197.3 million gain on digital assets.

• Mining revenue fell 5.4% quarter over quarter to $63.4 million, while bitcoin production declined 4.4% to approximately 891 BTC. Production costs rose 15.3% to around $42,100 per bitcoin.
• The company added about 425 BTC to its reserves without making any purchases during the quarter, bringing its total holdings to 8,427 BTC at the end of September.

Samsung Wallet launches USDC accounts on Solana

Samsung Wallet launched a stablecoin account feature allowing eligible U.S. Galaxy users to buy, hold, send, and receive USDC on Solana without a separate crypto app.

• The service is compatible with about 82 million Galaxy devices in the U.S., allowing users to transfer USDC to other wallets and send money to eligible bank accounts in more than 60 countries.
• Bastion provides the stablecoin infrastructure, with Coinbase as sub-custodian. Samsung plans to explore stablecoin payments and expansion into other markets.

Base deploys Denim upgrade on mainnet, replacing Flashblocks with 200ms block times

Coinbase-incubated Layer 2 network Base deployed its Denim upgrade, introducing full canonical blocks every 200 milliseconds, or five blocks per second.

• The upgrade retires Flashblocks and introduces BaseTime, giving smart contracts access to millisecond-resolution timestamps. Applications previously using Flashblocks must migrate to standard canonical block subscriptions.
• Denim also adds new transfer protections and compliance controls for B20 tokens. It marks Base's fourth independent network upgrade this year, following Azul, Beryl and Cobalt.

In the next 24 hours

• The U.S. will release its October employment report on Friday, including the unemployment rate and average hourly earnings. November's preliminary consumer sentiment reading and September's consumer credit data are also due.
• The eurozone will release September's retail sales data on Friday, including monthly and annual figures.
• Hyperliquid (HYPE) is among the tokens scheduled to unlock on Friday.

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