Dollar holds steady before US midterms as bitcoin steadies after Binance's $6.3bn heist and $3.64bn outflows
The dollar held in a narrow range on Monday ahead of Tuesday's US midterm elections, while bitcoin steadied above $77,000 after Binance said customer withdrawals were stabilising following last week's record $6.3 billion heist. Figures checked on Monday morning, 2 November 2026 (Pakistan time).
The US dollar and other major currencies held in a narrow range on Monday as investors waited for Tuesday's midterm elections in the United States, while bitcoin steadied after a bruising week in which the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, suffered a record $6.3 billion heist. The calm in currency markets contrasted with the tension in crypto markets, where customers pulled billions of dollars from Binance as it restored services over the weekend. Figures checked on Monday morning, 2 November 2026 (Pakistan time).
In early Asian trade, the euro languished near a 17-month low at $1.1159, weighed down by Fitch's revision of France's outlook to negative. Sterling was little changed at $1.3387, and the dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of major currencies, steadied at 101.94. The yen eased 0.15 per cent to 157.78 per dollar, while the Australian dollar was flat at $0.7033 ahead of Tuesday's Reserve Bank of Australia decision, where markets widely expect a rise in the cash rate to a near two-decade high of 4.85 per cent. The New Zealand dollar fell 0.11 per cent to $0.5625, after sliding 1.2 per cent last week following its central bank's surprise decision to leave rates unchanged.
The subdued currency moves reflect a market in wait-and-see mode. Americans vote on Tuesday to decide whether Democrats can wrest control of Congress from President Donald Trump's Republican Party. Democrats are widely predicted to win the House of Representatives, while the Senate outcome is more in doubt. Traders say a Democratic sweep could complicate plans for data-centre and artificial-intelligence infrastructure at state level and set up a contentious debate over raising the US debt ceiling, while a divided Congress would leave the administration's economic agenda constrained in different ways.
The week ahead is crowded beyond the election. Markets are awaiting the US ISM survey of manufacturing for October later on Monday, and the October payrolls report on Friday, with median forecasts for a 65,000 rise in jobs after September's disappointing 29,000 gain and the unemployment rate holding at 4.2 per cent. Central banks in the UK, Australia, Norway and Sweden are also meeting, with markets wagering on rate rises from the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Bank of England and Sweden's Riksbank, while Norway's Norges Bank is seen on hold.
In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin was up 0.22 per cent at $77,975.62 in early Monday trade, having fallen to a six-week low on Friday. Ether was up 0.27 per cent at $2,268.42, having slid to a two-month trough last week. The modest recovery followed a weekend in which Binance resumed withdrawals in phases, starting with bitcoin, ether and a group of other tokens, after suspending withdrawals when the hack was discovered. The bulk of the theft unfolded in around 20 minutes beginning late on 29 October, according to reports of the incident.
Binance said customers pulled $3.64 billion, or 2.1 per cent of its assets, as the exchange went back online on Sunday, and said withdrawals were stabilising after an initial spike while deposit volumes had remained substantial. The exchange said it had now covered 95 per cent of the $6.3 billion of stolen assets, using company money to buy replacement tokens, and insisted that user funds remained safe and that Binance, not its users, would absorb the financial impact. It reported $171 billion in total assets under management as of 28 October and 335 million registered users globally.
Not every measure of the outflows agrees. Crypto analytics platform DefiLlama showed higher outflows, at $5.81 billion, up from $4.36 billion earlier. Binance disputed that figure, saying it did not contain flows the exchange had deposited to its own new hot wallet and that its own update on X was closest to accurate, outstanding moves in both deposits and withdrawals since it was posted. The gap between the two figures is a reminder that, in fast-moving crypto markets, headline outflow numbers depend heavily on what is counted and when.
The combined market capitalisation of the two largest stablecoins, USDT and USDC, has dropped by about $1.2 billion since Friday, according to CoinMarketCap data cited in reports, a pattern often seen when money is leaving cryptocurrencies. At the same time, Binance said it was reopening withdrawals carefully, prioritising tokens based on the past week's user demand so that each network and asset pair could be restored with stability and security checks completed first. The first phase covered 15 crypto assets, including bitcoin, ether, XRP and dogecoin.
For the week ahead, the questions for markets are linked. If the midterms produce a clear shift in Congress, currency and bond markets may reprice the prospects for US spending, debt and regulation. If crypto outflows stabilise, as Binance says they are doing, bitcoin's recovery from its six-week low may hold; if they resume, the heist could yet weigh further on sentiment. Either way, Monday's steady dollar and tentative crypto rebound show a market pausing before a week that could reshape both stories.
This post is market news information only, not financial advice.
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