Week of 10 April 2023: Ether outpaces Bitcoin by 6.98 points on mixed volume
When Ether rises roughly twice as much as Bitcoin in the same week, what does the pair's behaviour and the two volume readings suggest about the move, and what remains unmeasured?
BTC rose from 28,323.76 to 30,304.65 (+6.99%) and ETH from 1,858.91 to 2,118.67 (+13.97%), a 6.98-point gap. BTC traded at 0.25 times its prior twelve-week dollar volume while ETH reached 1.17 times its own. Both closed in the upper third of their weekly ranges.
What the data shows. Both assets set their lows early in the week: BTC at 28,170 on Monday 10 April 13:00 UTC, ETH at 1,846.40 at 01:00 UTC the same day. BTC's best day was Monday itself (+4.64%) and its high, 31,000, arrived Friday 14 April 06:00 UTC. ETH's best day was Thursday 13 April (+4.93%), its largest hourly move (+4.30%) came in the hour starting Friday 14 April 00:00 UTC, and its weekly high of 2,141.54 was set at 19:00 UTC on Sunday 16 April. The two moved together but imperfectly: hourly correlation was 0.70, and the ETH/BTC ratio gained 6.52%. Funding was close to neutral for both, averaging 0.0072% per eight hours for BTC and 0.0069% for ETH.
What it does not show. The BTC reading is the more unusual one: dollar volume of 11.33 billion dollars was 0.25 times its prior twelve-week average, so the 6.99% rise happened on thin turnover. Thin volume does not tell us who was buying or whether a few large orders moved price. The ETH/BTC ratio gain does not tell us whether ETH led or BTC lagged, only that the gap widened. Nothing here identifies cause, and nothing says what followed the Sunday close.
What a careful desk would check. BTC's return ranked at the 78th percentile of 269 weeks, ETH's at the 87th, so both were strong but not rare. Yet BTC still sat 29.02% below its 52-week high and ETH 33.00% below, which keeps a rebound reading open. A desk would compare BTC's 2.10% largest hourly move with its 34.0% realised volatility and ask whether the thin volume would let a position exit at scale.
Ether against Bitcoin. ETH's +13.97% against BTC's +6.99% moved the ratio 6.52% in one week. A desk watching for a broad market move would treat a 0.70 correlation and a widening ratio as a partly asset-specific week rather than a uniform one.
What would change this reading
- If BTC volume returns towards its prior twelve-week average while price holds above 30,304.65, this week's thin-volume advance reads as a move the market has since confirmed.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio gives back the 6.52% gain, the divergence was a short-lived spread rather than a shift in leadership.
- If either asset trades below this week's lows of 28,170 and 1,846.40, the upper-third closes were a pause inside a larger range.
- If funding rises well above the 0.01% eight-hour high seen here, the carry that longs already pay each eight hours becomes materially larger.
Terms
- percentile
- the share of past weeks with a lower value; the 87th percentile means 87% of the 269 recorded weeks were weaker
- 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