Bitcoin Slides 5% as Ethereum Tumbles 6% in Broad Crypto Rout

Crypto's Thursday session went red fast. Bitcoin dropped 5% by 10:35 a.m. ET, changing hands at $76,409.37, while Ethereum slid 6% to roughly $2,277.20, according to Breaking The News. The slide came as part of a broader sell-off rippling across global markets.

The damage wasn't isolated to the two biggest coins. The pullback lands on top of a rough few days for crypto, with traders already jittery about macro conditions and the knock-on effects from a major exchange security incident.

That incident is still echoing. Binance said it is gradually restoring withdrawals across six blockchain networks — Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Base, Tron, Polygon and Sui — with service resuming progressively from 05:00 CET Thursday. The exchange warned users to expect delays as demand spikes, and it followed a late-October breach that drained roughly $6.3 billion in assets, which Binance has said it will absorb.

Politics is adding noise too. Earlier in the week, Bitcoin slipped more than 1% as traders watched US midterm results roll in, weighing how the next Congress might shape crypto regulation — including the proposed CLARITY Act. Bitcoin was down 1.32% at $76,313.43 at that point, with Ethereum off 1.10% at $2,247.06.

Corporate buyers kept shopping through the dip. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) said it picked up 811 Bitcoin for about $65.5 million between October 26 and November 1, at an average price of roughly $80,846. The company now holds 849,327 Bitcoin, acquired for an aggregate ~$64.08 billion, or about $75,451 per coin. It also repurchased 2,092,035 of its own shares for $208.2 million.

With Bitcoin now trading below Strategy's average entry and Binance still working through withdrawal backlogs, the next few sessions will show whether this is a shaking-out or the start of something deeper.