Bitcoin rose about 1.3% to $78,300 since midnight UTC on Wednesday, recovering from a dip to around $75,600 near 03:00 UTC. Ether gained 2%, the CoinDesk 80 Index rose 2.3%, and decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens led the market higher.Dip Came as Midterm Results ArrivedThe early drop came as US midterm results came in. CoinDesk reported that results showed Democrats winning control of Congress, which raised fresh questions over crypto legislation. Stock futures turned positive early Wednesday after earlier losses, and bitcoin recovered alongside them. Traders are now looking to Friday’s US jobs report.DeFi Tokens LeadCoinDesk’s DeFi Select Index rose about 5%, the strongest of its sector indexes, with all seven members higher, led by injective (INJ) and ethena (ENA). INJ rose 6.2%.Venice (VVV), the token of AI platform Venice, led the CoinDesk 100 gainers with a rise of about 7%, taking its 24-hour gain to about 17%. GRASS, BONK, NEAR and MORPHO each rose about 6%. Zcash (ZEC) gained 5% and is up 12% over 24 hours. Pepe (PEPE) rose about 5%, ahead of the CoinDesk Memecoin Index’s 1.1% gain.Trump-linked tokens fell. The official trump token (TRUMP) dropped 7.1% and World Liberty Financial (WLFI) lost 5%. Trump Media shares were down 6.5% in premarket trading.Futures: Fresh Money Into ZEC and ETHAcross the market, futures volume rose 27% in 24 hours while open interest rose only 3%. That suggests most of the activity was traders opening and closing positions, with only a modest amount of new money. Liquidations rose 22% to $469 million. The taker volume ratio flipped to a slight buy lean of 51.6%, from more than 51% sell the day before.ZEC open interest jumped 25%, outpacing its price gain, and it saw the strongest market-order buying of any coin. NEAR’s roughly 7% rally came with almost no new positions: its open interest rose just 0.35%.Over 24 hours, ETH open interest rose 4.2% on a 2.7% price gain, while BTC open interest rose 1.6% on a 2.1% gain. Funding rates are mildly positive across most coins, meaning longs are paying shorts. XMR and BCH are the exceptions, with negative funding.Options Calm DownBitcoin’s one-week implied volatility fell from about 41% at the early-morning spike to about 34%, as the pre-election rise in near-term options faded. Skew, the extra premium paid for puts over calls, jumped to about 19% during the dip and has since returned to near where it started the day.Four of bitcoin’s six most active options contracts are calls, led by the Dec. 25 $88,000 call and the Nov. 7 $78,000 call. In ether, four of the six most active contracts are puts.The CoinMarketCap Fear and Greed Index stood at 37, in fear territory, and its altcoin season index was 51.
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