Week of 20 January 2020: Bitcoin slips 1.00% while Ether adds 0.64% on thin volume
When the two largest assets move in opposite directions on light volume, how much of the divergence is meaningful, and what does the shared timing of their highs and lows suggest?
BTC fell from 8,701.72 to 8,615.00 (-1.00%) while ETH rose from 166.79 to 167.86 (+0.64%), a 1.64 percentage-point gap. Both peaked Wednesday 22 January 07:00 UTC and bottomed Friday 24 January 11:00 UTC. Volume ran below the prior 12-week average for both (BTC 0.77x, ETH 0.95x).
What the data shows. The two assets shared a skeleton and diverged at the edges. Both set their weekly highs at 07:00 UTC on Wednesday 22 January (BTC 8,818.00, ETH 171.47) and their lows at 11:00 UTC on Friday 24 January (8,238.00, 155.55) — neither put in its low before its high. Both had their worst day on Thursday 23 January (BTC -3.20%, ETH -3.13%) and their best on Sunday 26 January (BTC +3.30%, ETH +4.68%). ETH recovered further within its range: it closed at 77.3% of the week's span (upper third) against BTC's 65.0% (middle third). Hourly correlation was 0.85 and the ETH/BTC ratio gained 1.65%, so the divergence was modest. Dollar volume was $2.14bn for BTC and $0.36bn for ETH, below the prior 12-week average for both. BTC's weekly move was the larger of the two in absolute terms (-1.00% against 0.64%), and the two moved in opposite directions.
What it does not show. Nothing here says why the assets parted, who traded, or whether Sunday's bounce was new positioning or shorts closing. A 1.64-point return gap is small next to weekly swings of 7.04% (BTC range) and 10.23% (ETH range), so the divergence may be ordinary noise. Both markets remain far below their 52-week highs: BTC by 38.29%, ETH by 53.09%.
What a careful desk would check. These returns rank at the 39th percentile for BTC and the 53rd for ETH out of 101 weeks — an unremarkable week. Against that, funding stayed positive throughout: BTC averaged 0.0182% per eight hours (high 0.0547%, low 0.01%), ETH 0.0215% (high 0.0541%, low 0.01%), so longs paid shorts continuously. A desk would ask whether paying that carry is justified in a week when volume is 0.77x average and price ends near where it began.
Ether against Bitcoin. ETH's prior four weeks were all positive (1.70%, 0.75%, 8.25%, 13.80%); BTC's were mixed (-1.50%, -0.40%, 11.24%, 6.31%). This week extended that pattern slightly, with ETH ahead by 1.64 points — a continuation, not yet a break in the 0.85 hourly correlation.
What would change this reading
- If BTC closes a later week back above its weekly high of 8,818.00 while volume returns towards its 12-week average, this week reads as consolidation rather than distribution.
- If ETH's outperformance persists while hourly correlation falls below 0.7, the ratio shift has become a real divergence rather than noise around a shared path.
- If funding stays positive but volume keeps running below the prior 12-week average, longs are paying a carry that is not being matched by new trading interest.
- If either asset trades below its weekly low — 8,238.00 for BTC, 155.55 for ETH — Friday's floor was a pause rather than support.
Terms
- funding rate
- the periodic payment between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract; positive means longs pay shorts
- percentile
- the share of past weeks with a lower value; the 39th percentile means 39% of the 101 recorded weeks were lower
- hourly correlation
- how closely two prices moved together hour by hour, from -1 to 1