Week of 17 September 2018: Ether gains 11.02% while Bitcoin gains 3.2%
When Ether rises far faster than Bitcoin while both set their weekly low before their high, what can one week of price data say about the strength of the move, and what can it not say?
BTC rose from 6,500.08 to 6,708.0 (+3.2%) and ETH from 220.24 to 244.5 (+11.02%), leaving ETH ahead of BTC by 7.82 percentage points. ETH traded at 1.56 times its prior 12-week volume while BTC traded at 0.85 times. Both closed in the upper third of their weekly ranges.
What the data shows. Both assets fell first and then recovered. BTC set its low of 6,123 at 18:00 UTC on Wednesday 19 September and its high of 6,839.03 at 00:00 UTC on Saturday 22 September, a weekly range of 11.69%. ETH set its low of 192.4 earlier, at 20:00 UTC on Monday 17 September, and its high of 255.13 at the same Saturday hour, a range of 32.6%. Both had their worst day on 17 September (BTC -3.87%, ETH -10.93%) and their best day on 21 September (BTC 4.11%, ETH 10.59%). Each closed in the upper third of its week range. Volume split: BTC dollar volume was 1.59bn, 0.85 times its prior 12-week average, while ETH volume was 0.87bn, 1.56 times its average. Realised volatility (swings actually made, scaled to a yearly figure) was 50.1% for BTC and 111.2% for ETH.
What it does not show. The candles record prices, not causes. Nothing here identifies who traded ETH or why it moved further than BTC. ETH sits 78.91% below its 52-week high and BTC 42.78% below its own, so both moves came inside larger declines, and this data says nothing about what followed.
What a careful desk would check. ETH's largest hourly move was 6.48% (18:00 UTC Friday 21 September) against 3.94% for BTC (19:00 UTC Wednesday 19 September). Risk sized on BTC's swings would have sat well inside ETH's 32.6% weekly range. A desk would ask whether its sizing reflects that gap.
Ether against Bitcoin. The ETH/BTC ratio rose 7.57% and ETH outpaced BTC by 7.82 percentage points. Hourly correlation was 0.74, described as close but looser than a single broad move would imply. Funding figures are absent for this week, so no reading on leveraged positioning is available.
What would change this reading
- If ETH again outpaces BTC by more than 7.82 percentage points in a later week, the relative move becomes a pattern rather than a single week.
- If a later week trades below this week's low of 6,123 for BTC or 192.4 for ETH, the recovery reads as a pause inside the larger decline.
- If ETH volume falls back below its prior 12-week average while the price holds near 244.5, the volume signal behind this move weakens.
- If hourly correlation rises above 0.74 while the ETH/BTC ratio stops rising, the two assets are moving as one again.
Terms
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over the week, expressed as a yearly percentage
- ETH/BTC ratio
- the price of Ether expressed in Bitcoin; it rises when Ether gains value against Bitcoin
- percentile
- the share of past weeks with a lower value; 55% of the 31 earlier weeks were lower for BTC