Week of 17 April 2023: Bitcoin falls 8.96% and Ether 12.11% after three rising weeks
After three weeks of gains, what does a joint decline in Bitcoin and Ether reveal about the move's structure, and what does the week's data leave unresolved?
BTC fell from 30,304.66 to 27,590.60 (-8.96%) and ETH from 2,118.66 to 1,862.00 (-12.11%). The worst day for both was Wednesday 19 April, when the largest hourly drops also occurred (08:00 UTC). Both closed in the lower third of their weekly ranges, with lows on Friday 21 April.
What the data shows. BTC opened the week 0.6% below its weekly high of 30,485.00, set at 12:00 UTC on Tuesday 18 April. From there the direction was down: the worst day, Wednesday 19 April, took 5.21% off BTC and 8.07% off ETH, and the largest hourly moves arrived in the same hour, 08:00 UTC (BTC -3.02%, ETH -4.17%). The lows came late in the day on Friday 21 April (BTC 27,125.00 at 22:00 UTC, ETH 1,825.00 at 20:00 UTC), after the highs, so the week closed near its bottom: close location was 13.9% of the range for BTC and 12.3% for ETH. ETH fell further than BTC (ETH/BTC ratio -3.47%), yet the two moved closely hour by hour (correlation 0.91). Volume diverged: BTC dollar volume was 0.29 times its prior twelve-week average, ETH's 1.11 times.
What it does not show. The data records the path, not the reason. Low BTC volume alongside a large decline suggests limited participation but does not identify who sold or whether the moves were forced. Positive funding (BTC +0.006% per eight hours on average) means longs paid shorts on average, but the figures carry no open-interest data, so position size cannot be measured. The data does not say whether Friday's lows held.
What a careful desk would check. The weekly returns ranked at the 16th percentile for BTC and the 11th percentile for ETH among 270 weeks. The four prior weeks recorded for BTC were -0.02%, 0.73%, 0.54% and 6.99%, and for ETH -0.38%, 1.16%, 3.59% and 13.97%, with three of the four up. Realised volatility of 42.3% (BTC) and 50.6% (ETH) is annualised from actual swings. A desk would ask whether giving back three weeks of gains in one week changes the calibration of limits set during that rising stretch.
What would change this reading
- If a later week trades below Friday's lows of 27,125.00 (BTC) and 1,825.00 (ETH), this week's decline reads as the start of a longer move rather than a reversal of the prior gains.
- If BTC closes back above its weekly open of 30,304.66 while volume returns towards its prior twelve-week average, the week reads as a pullback that was absorbed.
- If funding turns negative while ETH keeps falling faster than BTC, the relative weakness has become crowded on the short side.
- If hourly correlation drops well below 0.91, the joint move has separated into two different markets, which changes how a pair hedge behaves.
Terms
- realised volatility (annualised)
- the size of the price swings that actually happened over the week, restated as a yearly percentage
- correlation
- how closely two prices moved together hour by hour, from -1 to 1; 0.91 means very close
- close location
- where the week's closing price sits within the week's high-to-low range, as a percentage