Bitcoin Clears $80,000, Polygon Eyes Hard Fork, South Korea Tightens Custody Rules

Bitcoin surged back above $80,000 on Thursday after a turbulent week tied to the U.S. midterm elections. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $74.6 million in net inflows on November 4, reversing three straight sessions of withdrawals that had drained roughly $1.16 billion from funds over the prior week. BTC had fallen as low as $75,600 during election-night trading before buyers stepped back in.

The bounce was amplified by a dramatic short squeeze. Total crypto liquidations topped $974 million in 24 hours, with short sellers accounting for roughly 78% of that figure. Ethereum gained nearly 7% to reclaim $2,400, Solana climbed about 3%, and the crypto Fear and Greed Index recovered from 34 to a neutral 50, suggesting sentiment has stabilized even as near-term resistance around $82,000 remains in focus.

Polygon Eyes Rare Hard Fork to Reclaim Stolen Funds

In a separate story with major implications for blockchain governance, Binance and Polymarket have proposed a hard fork of the Polygon Proof-of-Stake network to recover approximately 70.49 million POL tokens worth about $6.8 million. The tokens were stolen in separate security breaches at the two platforms on October 29 and 30, and Polygon block producers have already frozen the affected addresses to prevent movement. The governance proposal, published November 4 by a Polygon Labs validator support team member, calls for a one-time ledger change that would zero out five attacker wallets and credit equivalent balances to verified recovery addresses, without altering the total POL supply.

The proposal was scheduled for discussion at the Polygon Protocol Governance Call on November 5 at 14:30 UTC, and both Binance and Polymarket must verify control of their designated recovery wallets before any fork can be activated. The case raises a pointed question about the limits of blockchain immutability when institutional funds are at stake.

Meanwhile, South Korea's Financial Services Commission is weighing a rule that would require exchanges to hold about 99% of customer crypto in cold storage, up from the current 80% threshold. The move follows renewed scrutiny of exchange custody practices and comes as the country's largest exchange, Upbit, already holds 99.17% of assets offline, while some smaller rivals sit as low as 80.54%. Regulators are framing the proposal as a user-protection measure, though critics note that heavier cold wallet requirements do not eliminate custodial risk for ordinary users.