Week of 5 March 2018: Bitcoin falls 17.21% and Ether 16.82% in one week
What does a double-digit weekly fall look like when only three weeks of history exist, and which parts of the move can be measured without a longer record?
BTC fell from 11,515.0 to 9,533.57 (-17.21%) and ETH from 866.61 to 720.85 (-16.82%). Both set their weekly low in the same hour, 06:00 UTC on Friday 9 March, then posted their best day on Sunday 11 March. Only three weeks of history exist, so no percentile can be computed.
What the data shows. BTC opened at 11,515.0 and closed at 9,533.57, down 17.21%. ETH fell 16.82%, from 866.61 to 720.85. Both assets set their weekly low in the same hour: 8,329.0 for BTC and 640.0 for ETH at 06:00 UTC on Friday 9 March. The largest hourly move also matched — -7.21% for BTC and -6.27% for ETH in the hour starting 16:00 UTC on Wednesday 7 March, which was the worst day for both (BTC -7.53%, ETH -7.80%). The best day was the last, Sunday 11 March (BTC +8.70%, ETH +5.92%). Hourly correlation was 0.94, and the ETH/BTC ratio moved just 0.47%, so this was a broad decline rather than one asset leaving the other behind. The BTC high of 11,710.0 came on Monday, so the week traded down from an early peak.
What it does not show. Only three weeks of history are recorded, so this week's return cannot be ranked against past weeks. There is no funding data, so nothing here describes the cost of holding leveraged positions. The candles do not identify who sold or why. Sunday's rebound does not establish that the Friday low held.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility, the size of the swings that actually happened, annualised, reached 138.3% for BTC and 121.3% for ETH. BTC's full range from low to high was 40.59%. Both closes sat in the middle third of the week range (35.6% for BTC, 34.9% for ETH), above the low but well below the high. The prior three weeks for BTC were +28.77%, -7.57% and +20.07%, so this week's -17.21% reversed a strong run rather than extending an established slide.
Ether against Bitcoin. ETH fell slightly less than BTC, a difference of 0.39 percentage points. ETH also sat further below its 52-week high, -37.81% against -18.68% for BTC. Dollar volume was 2.72 billion for BTC and 0.38 billion for ETH; with no prior twelve-week figure in this dataset, neither can be judged against a normal week.
What would change this reading
- If BTC trades below 8,329.0 in a later week, Friday's low reads as a pause rather than a floor.
- If a later week recovers towards the open of 11,515.0 while hourly correlation stays at 0.94, the decline reads as a broad market move rather than an asset-specific one.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio moves well beyond this week's 0.47% change, the two assets have begun to trade on separate drivers.
- If more weekly history accumulates, the -17.21% return can finally be ranked against past weeks.
Terms
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over a period, expressed as a yearly percentage
- hourly correlation
- how closely two prices moved together hour by hour, from -1 to 1
- close location
- where the closing price sits between the week's low and high, as a percentage