Bitcoin (BTC) traded higher at Tuesday's Wall Street open as a tech-stock rebound took shape under the shadow of uncertainty surrounding the United States midterm elections.

• Bitcoin price action edged 0.7% higher on Tuesday as US equities avoided succumbing to midterm election uncertainty.
• Analysis from The Kobeissi Letter suggested markets were pricing in two years of political uncertainty amid expectations of Democratic gains in the midterm elections.
• WTI crude oil dipped to $93.59 per barrel, its lowest level since Oct. 15, despite fresh US strikes targeting Iran's Qeshm Island.

BTC Volatility Cools as Stocks Stabilize

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD circling $77,000, continuing to retain local lows near $76,300 seen on Friday.

Stocks faced conflicting forces at the start of the US trading session. Apple shares sought to pare losses after falling 4% in premarket trading, with the company forecasting gross margins of 45% to 46% for the December quarter — down from 47.9% in the previous quarter — citing rising memory-chip costs. The guidance handed traders a concrete earnings-season datapoint on how hardware supply-chain expenses were filtering into big-tech profitability.

Markets also weighed the potential impact of the US midterm elections on the balance of power in Congress. Falling midway through a presidential term, midterms decide every House seat and roughly one-third of the Senate, giving the vote a direct say in the legislative agenda for the next two years. Although polls suggested significant Democratic gains, some analysts cautioned that the results could prove less decisive than expected.

"Investors seem to have a significant dose of skepticism about whether the final outcome is going to be quite as favorable to Democrats as the polling suggests," Tobin Marcus, head of US policy and politics at equity research firm Wolfe Research, told CNBC. Wolfe added that polls were "likely overstating Democratic strength."

The S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index finished Monday down 0.5% and 1.1%, respectively. Analysts at trading resource The Kobeissi Letter argued that US political uncertainty, rather than concerns over AI spending alone, was driving market weakness. The commentary came as equity benchmarks struggled for direction after Monday's losses.

"The reality is that the market is pricing-in a major shift in the political landscape of the US," the firm wrote in a post on X.

The analysis suggested that a divided Congress could lead to frequent legislative impasses, creating conditions in which policy decisions would become less predictable.

"A change in the political landscape always comes with uncertainty; markets hate uncertainty," it continued. "Objectively, the market is in the process of pricing-in two years of political gridlock."

For crypto, that calculus carries practical weight: federal digital-asset legislation requires approval from both chambers of Congress, so the election's outcome helps set the policy backdrop BTC operates under. With polls closing later on Tuesday, attention was set to shift to vote counting, with the final congressional map set to frame that backdrop over the next two years.

Oil Digests Latest Iran Strike After 7% Drop

Oil prices, meanwhile, brushed off a US attack on Iran's Qeshm Island, a key military control outpost for the Strait of Hormuz oil route. The strait connects major Persian Gulf crude producers to global shipping lanes and ranks among the world's most significant energy transit chokepoints.

The strike came days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that President Donald Trump was open to resolving the US-Iran war "diplomatically" — comments that triggered a 7% drop in WTI crude oil on Monday. WTI initially jumped to $98.80 per barrel before dipping below $94 on Tuesday, hitting its lowest level since Oct. 15 at $93.59 per barrel. Energy costs feed directly into headline inflation readings, keeping the post-strike oil trajectory among the macro variables traders were tracking alongside the election.