A daily ETH conversion schedule meets a 26.24% weekly range
Should the payments company keep converting receipts once a day at a fixed time, or spread and time the conversions to avoid single-hour moves like Sunday's 7.00% swing?
The market facts are real; the decision maker is illustrative.
The week and the position
In the week of 20 September 2021, ETH fell 8.09%, from 3,328.57 to 3,059.37, inside a 26.24% range and with 128.8% annualised realised volatility. Monday was the worst day at -10.55%, Wednesday the best at +11.21%, and the largest one-hour move was 7.00% on Sunday at 09:00 UTC. Volume of 15.3bn was 1.2 times the prior 12-week average. An illustrative payments company converts customer receipts into ETH once a day, so each conversion is exposed to one day's price, and three of the four prior listed weeks were down.
Judgment
Keep the once-daily conversion on a fixed schedule and stop trying to improve the rate. A 26.24% range with a 7.00% hour means any chosen window is a coin toss, and moving conversions around would concentrate them on the week's best or worst hours. Separate the operating float, held in the receipt currency, from the converted amount, and cap a single day's conversion so that one -10.55% day cannot exceed the float the business can absorb. Accept that daily rates will be poor on days like Monday.
What would change it
If realised volatility and the largest hourly move fall back for several weeks, so that a 26.24% range and a 7.00% hour are no longer typical, the fixed schedule can be revisited. If receipts concentrate into one or two days each week, the per-day size cap, not the schedule, should be tightened.
What sets this case apart
This is an operational conversion cadence, not a position: the cost is a bad single day's rate, and the fix is size and float, not forecasting.