Willy Woo: The cycle likely has peaked, M2 growth not necessarily driving Bitcoin higher

It’s past 11 a.m. ET, and all U.S. states except Hawaii have launched in-person voting. Hawaii is set to open its polling stations in under an hour. Some voting machines in Westchester County, a key swing district in New York, have malfunctioned, while severe flooding in Florida has forced multiple polling sites to temporarily relocate. The latest updates are as follows: 1. The Westchester County Board of Elections in New York said local voting machines cannot currently read paper ballots, though voters may opt to fill out ballots by hand. Republican Congressman Mike Lawler told CNN he expects the issues to be resolved shortly. 2. Twenty-one polling sites in central Florida have been forced to relocate due to severe flooding, a fact confirmed by the state’s Secretary of State’s office. 3. The U.S. Department of Justice has deployed federal election monitors to multiple swing states and the largest cities and counties in other regions with high Democratic support. 4. Former President Barack Obama released a new automated phone call recording to campaign for Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, part of final-stage get-out-the-vote efforts ahead of the election.

Gasoline prices are a key gauge of the cost of living for many Americans, and this year’s election day gas prices have hit a record high. While retail gas prices at the pump have declined in recent days and weeks, data from the American Automobile Association (AAA) shows the national average for regular gasoline stood at $4.15 per gallon as of Tuesday. CNN’s analysis of AAA data dating back to 2000 found this is the highest ever recorded gas price on a U.S. election day, far exceeding the previous record of $3.80 per gallon set in 2022. At that time, U.S. inflation hit a 40-year high during President Joe Biden’s tenure. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump sharply criticized Biden for the record gas prices under his administration, and pledged to bring gas prices down to below $2 per gallon. But in reality, largely due to President Trump’s decision to launch military strikes on Iran, current gas prices are more than $1 per gallon higher than they were on the 2024 election day, when the national average gas price was just $3.10 per gallon. Additionally, the average gas price during Trump’s second term has reached $3.481 per gallon, which is also higher than the $3.471 per gallon average during Biden’s tenure. However, when adjusted for inflation, gas prices do not appear as elevated. After inflation adjustment, the real average U.S. gas price on election day in 2012 exceeded $5 per gallon.

According to data from the BIT Stock Platform, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 4.00% intraday to 10,741.56 points. NVIDIA gained 3.03%, Broadcom 3.90%, Micron 3.62%, Intel 3.28%, AMD 5.81%, Qualcomm 1.28%, TSMC 2.32%, and ASML 2.46%.

Ahead of Election Day, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s core message was: “The polls are wrong.” He maintained the optimistic stance he has held throughout the campaign, stating, “This feels just like 2024 — when we won big, taking the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives. That’s exactly the situation now. The polls are wrong.” On Monday evening, Johnson appeared alongside former Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin at a campaign rally for Rep. Jen Kiggans in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District. He urged voters to cast their ballots, reminding the crowd, “Especially in a competitive race like this, victory often comes down to a razor-thin margin.” Johnson also noted, “In the last election cycle, we won 10 races by margins of 6,000 votes or less.”

Binance co-founder He Yi posted that since the start of 2026, Binance’s security team has detected and blocked a total of 57 suspected North Korea-linked cyber threat incidents. These attacks reflect that state-sponsored attackers continue to target the cryptocurrency industry. The attack methods include fake recruitment interviews, malware disguised as popular development tools, compromised software packages and browser extensions, fake video conferencing applications, and social engineering attacks designed to steal credentials or deploy remote access malware. Binance successfully intercepted many of these attacks, but even a single failure to stop one would have extremely severe consequences, and such incidents should not occur.

Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin has released an update on its security incident, noting that affected assets are currently valued at around $36.3 million, with $12.9 million already frozen and related work ongoing. The platform and its mobile application remain suspended until security is confirmed to be restored. The company stated that customer assets are secure, with balances still recorded in individual accounts. Previously, the exchange had announced it had frozen $11 million in related assets.