Week of 25 October 2021: Bitcoin adds 0.74% while Ether gains 5.02% after a shared Thursday low
When two assets rise together but one rises about seven times as much, what does the week's shape say about where the move began, and what can it not say about what comes next?
BTC gained 0.74% (60,852.22 to 61,299.80) and ETH 5.02% (4,082.33 to 4,287.21). Both hit their weekly lows on Thursday 28 October and posted their best day there. The ETH/BTC ratio rose 4.25%, and funding stayed positive on both assets all week.
What the data shows. BTC opened at 60,852.22 and closed at 61,299.80 (+0.74%), a return at the 46th percentile of the 193 weeks on record. ETH opened at 4,082.33 and closed at 4,287.21 (+5.02%), at the 62nd percentile. The two paths were not identical. ETH fell before it rose: its low of 3,890.17 came at 01:00 UTC on Thursday 28 October and its high of 4,460.47 on Friday 29 October at 16:00 UTC. BTC's high, 63,710.63, came first, on Monday 25 October at 16:00 UTC, and its low of 57,820.00 last, at 18:00 UTC on Thursday 28 October. Thursday was the best day for both (BTC +3.70%, ETH +9.28%) and held the largest hourly move for both (+2.66% and +3.15% at 08:00 UTC). BTC's worst day was Tuesday 26 October (-4.36%); ETH's was Wednesday 27 October (-5.07%). Dollar volume was 19.23 billion for BTC and 14.33 billion for ETH, roughly 1.09 and 1.07 times their prior twelve-week averages. BTC closed in the middle third of its range, ETH in the upper third. BTC finished 8.34% below its 52-week high, ETH 3.45% below.
What it does not show. The data records paths, not reasons. An hourly correlation of 0.85 shows the two moved closely, but not what moved them. Positive funding says long positions paid short ones; it does not reveal how large those positions were or who held them, and no open-interest figures are present. One week cannot establish whether the Thursday low will hold.
What a careful desk would check. Funding averaged 0.0298% per eight hours for BTC (high 0.0606%) and 0.0291% for ETH (high 0.0597%), never falling below 0.01%: a steady carrying cost for a leveraged long. Realised volatility, the size of the swings that occurred, scaled to a yearly figure, was 53.7% for BTC and 68.6% for ETH, so ETH's larger gain came with a wider swing. BTC's week also slowed a prior run: the four earlier weekly returns were 11.68%, 13.40%, 12.57% and -1.10%.
Ether against Bitcoin. ETH beat BTC by 4.28 percentage points and the ETH/BTC ratio rose 4.25%. Both closed positive, so this is a difference of degree rather than a divergence. ETH also made its low before its high; BTC made its high before its low.
What would change this reading
- If BTC trades below its weekly low of 57,820.00 in a later week, the Thursday reversal reads as a pause rather than a floor.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio gives back its 4.25% gain while both assets stay positive, the outperformance was a one-week rotation.
- If funding holds near 0.03% per eight hours while prices stop rising, longs keep paying for a position that is no longer advancing.
- If BTC closes back above its weekly high of 63,710.63, the Monday peak reads as consolidation inside an ongoing advance.
Terms
- funding rate
- the periodic payment between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract; positive means longs pay shorts
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over a period, expressed as a yearly percentage
- percentile
- the share of past weeks with a lower value; the 46th percentile means 46% of past weeks were lower