Drop In: A Soft Market, a Steep Retarget, and What Midterms Have (and Haven't) Meant

Data as of about 4:27 PM ET, Fri Oct 16, 2026. Estimates move with every block.

Well, it's been one of those weeks where the market leaned back on its heels and the network leaned forward. Bitcoin drifted lower, the rest of the market slid a little harder, and this morning Bitcoin's difficulty jumped about twice as far as the trackers had guessed. Also, with the US midterms coming up on Tuesday, Nov 3, folks have started asking what elections “do” to Bitcoin. I'll give you the numbers and my honest read on how little they can tell us.

Quick ground rule before we roll in: everything below is either public industry data or general mining mechanics. Where I talk about our own setup, I'll say so plainly.

The dip: what the market actually did

As of 4:26 PM ET, CoinGecko had Bitcoin at about $81,527. That's down 0.96% over 24 hours, 1.05% over seven days and 3.25% over 14 days, but still up 7.59% over 30 days ¹. In CoinGecko's daily series, BTC opened Oct 5 near $86,490. Today's print is about 5.7% below that ². So this is a dip, not a crater.

The rest of the market took more of a beating. Over 14 days, Ethereum was down 9.54% (to about $2,410), Litecoin 12.8% (to about $59.71) and Dogecoin 12.0% (to about $0.080) ¹. Total crypto market cap was about $2.76 trillion, down 3.82% in 24 hours, and Bitcoin's share sat near 59.4% ³. When Bitcoin's share holds up while everything else gets knocked around, the market's being cautious, not panicking.

I won't pretend to know why it dipped. Plenty of folks will tell you with great confidence. I'd just as soon show you the tape.

Bitcoin difficulty adjustment: the retarget came early and came big

Bitcoin's difficulty retargeted at block 971,712 at about 8:37 AM ET today. It rose 5.92%, from roughly 132.72T to 140.58T ⁴. For context, the Oct 3 retarget was basically flat (−0.03%), and the Sep 19 one was +4.16% ⁴.

Here's the part worth a second look. Back on Saturday, Oct 10 at 6:09 AM ET, mempool.space estimated about +2.90%, landing around 6:07 PM ET today ⁵. We got roughly double the move, about nine and a half hours early, because blocks kept coming in faster than ten minutes. Estimates are estimates, and they move with every block. It pays to hold them loosely, like a board you're not sure is waxed.

The meter's already running on the next one. As of 4:26 PM ET, mempool.space showed about +2.94% at block 973,728, around Thu Oct 29, 11:23 PM ET, with 1,966 blocks to go ⁶. That's an estimate built on about 46 blocks of data, so take it lightly.

What it means in our operation: a higher difficulty means the same hashrate earns a smaller slice of each day's block rewards. Nothing on the machines changed. That's the deal every miner signs up for, us included.

Bitcoin and the midterm elections: what history shows, and why it proves very little

US midterms fall on Tuesday, Nov 3, 2026. Here's what Bitcoin did around the last three, using Coin Metrics' daily reference prices ⁷:

You could squint at the one-year column and see a pattern: up all three times. But three data points is barely a sample. It's three Tuesdays. Each window was also dominated by crypto-specific events, market cycles and the halving calendar, which have nothing to do with who won a House seat. Look at 2018: Bitcoin lost nearly half its value in the 90 days after the election before recovering. That's not something you'd want to bet a mortgage on, in either direction.

The stock market has a much longer record. LPL Research reports the S&P 500 has risen in the 12 months after 18 straight midterms going back to 1954, with an average gain of 18.2%. It also finds midterm years themselves have been the weakest in the four-year cycle, averaging 4.6% with an average drawdown of −17.5% ⁸. Yardeni Research's tables show the 12-month S&P 500 change after Election Day was +4.5% after 2014 and +11.7% after 2018 ⁹. Using FRED's S&P 500 closes, it was about +14.5% after 2022 (3,828.11 on Nov 8, 2022 to 4,382.78 on Nov 8, 2023) ¹⁰.

Even LPL's own write-up says it right on the label: past performance is no guarantee of future results ⁸. Eighteen cycles beats three, but it's still a small number of very different eras. And none of it is a law of nature. Markets don't read the calendar.

My take, for what it's worth: elections can add noise. Our job is to keep the rigs running and watch the numbers that actually move mining (difficulty, hashprice, block times) and not lean too hard on any one storyline.

What we're watching next week

• The next retarget estimate. Does the early ~+2.94% read hold up as more blocks come in ⁶?
• Hashprice after today's jump. A higher difficulty plus a softer price squeezes it from both sides.
• Miner hardware prices if Bitcoin keeps drifting.

See y'all next Friday. Keep your knees bent.

Disclaimer: This post is for education and describes Somibo Digital's own mining operation, which mines only for its own account, along with public industry data. It is not financial, investment or tax advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any asset or hardware. Historical patterns, including election-cycle data, do not predict future results. Crypto is volatile and you can lose money. Do your own research.

Header photo: Marina on Pexels (Pexels License), cropped.