A once-daily conversion met a 13.13% hourly fall on the week's worst day
Should the payments company keep converting all daily receipts in one batch at a fixed time, or split them across several batches through the day?
The market facts are real; the decision maker is illustrative.
The week and the position
In the week of 18 February 2019, ETH closed at 132.10, down 1.25%, after a 26.04% range between a high of 166.00 (Sunday 03:00 UTC) and a low of 131.70 (Sunday 23:00 UTC). Sunday alone fell 16.26%, including a -13.13% hour at 14:00 UTC, and volume ran 1.87 times the prior 12-week average, with dollar volume of 0.75bn for the week. An illustrative payments company converts customer receipts into ETH once a day, so each day's receipts fill at a single price, and the week ended near its low.
Judgment
One daily batch puts every receipt's conversion into a single hour, and Sunday shows what a single hour can cost: 13.13% against the previous print. Split the daily conversion into two or three batches spread through the day, sized to the receipts actually on hand, and hold unconverted receipts in dollars between batches. The extra spreads are a known, recurring cost; a 13.13% hour is not. Keep the batch schedule fixed rather than shifting the conversion time towards whatever price looked best that day.
What would change it
If the added spreads and fees from splitting exceed the slippage measured against a single-batch fill over several weeks, revert to one batch. If hourly moves contract well below this week's extremes for a month, the split can be reduced.
What sets this case apart
This is an execution-timing problem for a converter of real customer receipts, not a directional view: the week closed almost flat while the intraday risk was extreme.