Week of 14 June 2021: Bitcoin -8.77% and Ether -10.59% as both close near their weekly lows
When two assets fall nearly 9% to 11% on below-average volume after a three-week rebound, how much of the picture does this week settle, and what remains open?
BTC fell from 39,020.56 to 35,600.16 (-8.77%) and ETH from 2,509.33 to 2,243.47 (-10.59%). Both hit their weekly lows on Sunday 20 June at 12:00 UTC, after their highs. Dollar volume ran at 0.81x the prior twelve-week average for BTC and 0.50x for ETH.
What the data shows. BTC rose to 41,330.00 on Tuesday 15 June at 18:00 UTC, then declined to 33,336.00 on Sunday 20 June at 12:00 UTC. The low came after the high, so the week trended down rather than reversing within it. The close of 35,600.16 sat at the 28.3% mark of the week's 23.98% range, in the lower third. ETH traced the same path: a high of 2,640.00 early on Tuesday, a low of 2,040.68 on Sunday, and a close of 2,243.47 across a 29.37% range. The two assets moved together hour by hour (correlation 0.88), and the largest hourly move for both fell in the hour starting 10:00 UTC on Sunday (-2.57% BTC, -3.01% ETH). Weekly returns ranked at the 17th percentile for BTC and the 13th for ETH against 174 weeks of history. Volume was below the prior twelve-week average for both (0.81x BTC, 0.50x ETH).
What it does not show. The candles give no cause and no counterparty. Low volume is consistent with fewer participants, but does not say who stopped trading or who sold. Sunday's low was followed by a bounce into the close, and the data cannot say whether that bounce carried into the next week.
What a careful desk would check. Three up weeks (+2.77%, +0.44%, +9.01% for BTC) followed a -25.36% week, so this down week arrived at the end of a partial rebound attempt, not from a standing high. Realised volatility, the size of the swings that actually happened scaled to a yearly figure, reached 72.0% for BTC and 85.1% for ETH. ETH fell 1.82 percentage points more than BTC, taking the ETH/BTC ratio down 2.0%.
Funding. Funding, the periodic payment between long and short holders of perpetual futures, stayed near flat: BTC averaged 0.0055% per eight hours with a minimum of -0.0184%, and ETH averaged 0.005% with a minimum of -0.0244%. Neither side paid meaningfully across the week.
What would change this reading
- If BTC trades below 33,336.00 in a later week, Sunday's low reads as a pause rather than a floor.
- If a later week closes back above the open of 39,020.56, this decline reads as a pullback inside the rebound attempt rather than its end.
- If ETH continues to fall faster than BTC and the ratio drops well beyond its -2.0% weekly change, the move has become a relative one, which changes which hedge matters.
- If volume returns towards the prior twelve-week average while price keeps falling, the decline has more participation than this week's turnover suggests.
Terms
- return percentile
- the share of past weeks with a smaller move; the 17th percentile means this week's return sat near the bottom of the 174 weeks recorded
- close location
- where the week's closing price sits between the week's low and high, as a percentage
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over a period, expressed as a yearly percentage