A -23.86% week forces a daily ETH conversion schedule to absorb a -7.86% day
Should a payments company keep converting customer receipts into ETH once a day at a fixed hour, or spread and cap conversions to limit exposure to single-day moves like Thursday's -7.86%?
The market facts are real; the decision maker is illustrative.
The week and the position
In the week of 18 November 2019, ETH fell 23.86%, from 183.82 to 139.96, closing in the lower third of its 33.38% range. The worst day was -7.86% on 21 November, the largest 1-hour move -4.61% at 10:00 UTC on 22 November, and the best day only +1.53%. Realised annualised volatility was 80.9%. Volume was below the prior 12-week average, and ETH underperformed BTC by 5.05 percentage points, with the pair moving in the same direction at 0.91 correlation. An illustrative payments company converts receipts into ETH once daily.
Judgment
Keep the daily cadence and fix the conversion hour, but treat each day's receipts as an inventory the company cannot choose the price of. Do not batch receipts into later days hoping for a better print: the best day gained 1.53% while the worst lost 7.86%, and the week closed near its low. Hold a small buffer only to fund same-day outflows, and size it so a -4.61% hour does not force an off-schedule conversion at the worst point.
What would change it
If realised volatility and the worst-day loss fall back towards the prior four weeks' range (4.89%, -1.25%, 4.09%, -2.72%), a longer batching window can be tested. If ETH keeps losing ground against BTC, the inventory buffer should be cut further rather than the schedule changed.
What sets this case apart
This is a treasury operations problem about conversion cadence and inventory limits, not a view on direction; the cost is a known daily schedule, not a forecast.