Bitcoin finance, weekly · 31 October to 6 November · Published by Hemi Labs
The week in five lines Democrats won the House and Senate on 3 November. Crypto PACs spent about $176M, with roughly $75M going to two races they lost. Binance reopened withdrawals on 1 November and says about 98% of the stolen funds are now recovered or replaced. US spot ETFs shed $870M from 2 to 5 November, with outflows on three of four days. Wall Street had its worst day in 18 months on 5 November, and Bitcoin fell 5.65% to $75,880. Hemi's GPU prover runs about 2.3x faster than upstream SP1 on the same hardware, as hemiProve nears beta. By the numbers Week to 6 November; ETF flows through 5 November
A Blue Congress, and a $75 Million Lesson for Crypto PACs Democrats took control of both chambers in the 3 November midterms. The crypto industry's PACs spent about $176 million, and the biggest bets lost.
Ohio: Fairshake and Digital Freedom Fund spent $63M against Sherrod Brown, who won. Illinois was the other loss. CoinDesk Market reaction: Bitcoin dipped overnight on the results, then recovered to about $77,400. CoinDesk Policy outlook: HashKey says Democratic control may delay some crypto policies. The CLARITY Act, stalled in the Senate, now has the lame-duck session before the new Congress sits in January. CoinDesk OUR READ Bitcoin market structure still needs votes from both parties, and that has not changed. Spending against individual candidates bought little this cycle. Rules already passed still apply, with GENIUS Act regulations due in January.
ETF Outflows and a Tech Sell-Off Pull BTC Below $76,000 Spot ETFs lost $870 million in four days. On 5 November, worries over AI spending gave Wall Street its worst day in 18 months, and Bitcoin fell with it. US spot BTC ETF net flows by day
Grey: outflow. Orange: inflow. Friday 6 November not yet reported. Source: Farside BlackRock's IBIT accounted for $807M of the outflows from 2 to 5 November. Farside The 5 November sell-off: the S&P 500 fell 4.4%, the Nasdaq about 5.5%, and the Dow 3.4%, on doubts about AI spending and tech valuations. Motley Fool Jobs beat: October payrolls rose 165,000 against about 65,000 expected, unemployment held at 4.1%, and Bitcoin slipped below $76,000. KuCoin Bitcoin collateral climbed at Aave, Spark, and Morpho BTC posted with lenders, net of borrowing
Change from 30 October. DefiLlama, Morpho API.
BTC Loan Rates Cool, Then Climb Again After last week's spike to 13%, the rate to borrow USDC against cbBTC on Base fell as low as 5.4%. By 6 November it was back above 8%, with borrowing at $1.63 billion. Borrow rate, cbBTC to USDC on Morpho, Base
Variable borrow APY, daily. Orange: latest. Morpho API. The largest BTC-backed loan markets on Morpho Borrowed and variable rate, 6 November
Morpho API. Kraken's kBTC borrows cheapest. Loans against kBTC in RLUSD and PYUSD cost about 4%, half the rate on cbBTC. Babylon held steady at 40,778 BTC staked, while Lombard's LBTC backing eased 2.8% to 6,862 BTC. Bitcoin DeFi was flat at about 53,300 BTC, or 5.0% of all DeFi, per DefiLlama.
Binance Reopens, Refills, and Widens Its Reserves Report A week after the largest crypto theft on record, Binance turned withdrawals back on and expanded its proof of reserves. Withdrawals resumed on 1 November, reopening asset by asset. 24/7 Wall St. About 98% replaced: Binance says nearly all of the lost funds are now recovered or replenished. 24/7 Wall St. Reserves widened: proof of reserves now covers 44 tokens, up from 10, with a zero-knowledge proof to follow. 24/7 Wall St. A separate breach: on 5 November, Binance removed API keys tied to SignalPlus after a social engineering attack there took about $82,000. Binance systems were unaffected. 24/7 Wall St. FROM MIDWEEK WITH MAX Secure storage is a solved problem with poor UX: multivendor multisig and offline key generation with extra entropy. The harder problem is assets in active use, where Hemi's ZK settlement and prover diversity across zkVMs remove single points of failure. Full recap Status board As of 6 November
hemiProve Speeds Up as veHEMI Takes Shape From this week's shortened Midweek with Max: Hemi's ZK proving network has a name, a faster prover, and contracts with auditors. Meet hemiProve. It is the tentative name for Hemi's ZK proving network and ZK miner. Final QA across platforms is underway ahead of the beta. 2.3x faster than SP1. On the same hardware, the optimized GPU prover runs about 2.3x faster than upstream SP1 and 7 to 7.5x faster than upstream RISC Zero. Audits in motion. hemiProve contracts are with auditors, the veHEMI relock awaits a final delivery date, and Oxygen is expected to ship to audit this week. The next hemiStake launches once the relock audit clears, with auto-relock, retroactive rewards, and PoP points conversion. Where veHEMI goes: hemiProve, hBitVM, and the FastTrack Bitcoin tunnel liquidity system will use veHEMI as economic collateral, with fees to passive holders and to active holders who restake. Later, the chain builder extends to shared sequencing and shared DA. Coming soon: an integration with a Bitcoin-backed lender, plus new technical posts. Full format returns next week. Full recap COMMUNITY · HEMIGO OF THE MONTH October Goes to Luctatio Luctatio is the Hemigo of the Month for October 2026 and receives the exclusive Special Hemigo of the Month Hoodie. COMMUNITY · HAIR GAMES Season XI Is Live Hair Games Season XI continues. Part 2 of the Hemi Arcade 2: Turbo Edition livestream aired Thursday, 5 November. Earn on Hemi: SushiSwap and BrownFi pools Merkl incentive APR as of 6 November
Jurisdictional restrictions may apply. Rates may fluctuate based on market conditions.
Ahead: MSCI, the Fed, and GENIUS Rules
Figures as of 6 November 2026, 16:00 UTC, from DefiLlama, Morpho, Farside, and Merkl. Hemi Pulse is published by Hemi Labs for information only. It is not investment, legal, or tax advice. Digital assets involve risk. |
Hemi Pulse - November 6, 2026
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