Week of 1 May 2023: Ether finishes flat while Bitcoin falls 2.75% on light volume
When Bitcoin falls and Ether ends the week unchanged while trading is quiet, what can price and volume say about whether the two assets are separating, and what can they not settle?
BTC fell from 29,233.2 to 28,430.1 (-2.75%) while ETH moved from 1,870.08 to 1,870.4 (+0.02%). BTC dollar volume was 0.28 of its prior 12-week average. Both made their weekly low on Monday 1 May and their high at 00:00 UTC on Saturday 6 May, and the ETH/BTC ratio rose 2.84%.
What the data shows. Bitcoin lost 2.75% and Ether gained 0.02%, a gap of 2.77 percentage points in favour of Ether. Both set their low early in the week: BTC at 27,666.95 at 20:00 UTC on Monday 1 May, ETH at 1,806.12 at 21:00 UTC the same day. Both reached their high at 00:00 UTC on Saturday 6 May, at 29,820.0 and 2,019.0. The largest hourly move came in the same hour for both, at 01:00 UTC on Monday 1 May: -2.77% for BTC and -2.62% for ETH. BTC dollar volume was 0.28 of its prior 12-week average and ETH's was 0.91 of its own, so the week traded below both norms. BTC closed in the middle third of its weekly range and ETH in the lower third of a wider one, 11.79% against 7.78%. BTC's return sits at the 27th percentile of the 272 weeks recorded, ETH's at the 47th.
What it does not show. Volume figures show how much traded, not who traded or why activity was low. A flat weekly close for ETH does not show that buyers and sellers were evenly matched at any one price; ETH ranged 11.79% inside the week. The data does not show whether the Monday low marked a change of direction.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility, the size of the swings that actually happened scaled to a yearly figure, was 42.9% for BTC and 46.4% for ETH. Funding averaged 0.0055% per eight hours for BTC and 0.006% for ETH, small positive payments from long to short holders, but each touched negative territory (minima -0.0064% and -0.0026%). A desk would note that a thin week can hold moves that look larger than the conviction behind them.
Ether against Bitcoin. Hourly correlation was 0.87 and the ETH/BTC ratio rose 2.84%, so the two moved together but Ether held up better. ETH's best day was 5 May at 6.19% and its worst was 6 May at -4.86%, the day of the shared high.
What would change this reading
- If BTC closes a later week below this week's low of 27,666.95, the quiet week reads as a pause before a fall rather than as stability.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio rises again by more than 2.84%, Ether's outperformance is building into a trend rather than a single week.
- If BTC volume stays near 0.28 of its prior 12-week average while price moves sharply, the thin market may be amplifying the moves.
- If funding stays positive while BTC remains inside the 27,666.95 to 29,820.0 range, long holders keep paying for exposure that is not yet breaking out.
Terms
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over a period, expressed as a yearly percentage
- ETH/BTC ratio
- the price of Ether expressed in Bitcoin; it rises when Ether gains value against Bitcoin
- funding rate
- the periodic payment between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract; positive means longs pay shorts