Week of 12 June 2023: Bitcoin gains 1.6% while Ether loses 1.82% on light volume
When Bitcoin and Ether move in the same direction hour by hour yet finish the week apart, what does that gap say about the market, and what does low volume add to the reading?
BTC rose from 25,925.54 to 26,339.97 (+1.6%) while ETH fell from 1,752.77 to 1,720.95 (-1.82%), a 3.42 percentage point gap. Dollar volume was 0.56 times the prior twelve-week average for BTC and 0.62 for ETH. Both assets hit their weekly lows on Thursday 15 June and their largest hourly drop in the same hour on Wednesday 14 June.
What the data shows. The two assets tracked each other closely (hourly correlation 0.92), yet ETH lagged: the ETH/BTC ratio fell 3.36% over the week. Both fell hardest in the hour starting 20:00 UTC on Wednesday 14 June (BTC -3.63%, ETH -5.20%), and both set their weekly lows on Thursday 15 June (BTC 24,800.00 at 11:00 UTC, ETH 1,626.01 at 09:00 UTC). Both then recovered, with Friday 16 June the best day of the week for each (BTC +2.92%, ETH +3.06%). BTC closed at 26,339.97, in the upper third of its weekly range (close location 75.5%), 14.88% below its 52-week high. Its +1.6% week ranked at the 54th percentile of the 278 weeks on record, so the gain was ordinary by historical standards.
What it does not show. Volume tells us how much was traded, not who traded it. At 0.56 and 0.62 times the prior twelve-week average, this was a quiet week, which makes single hours like Wednesday 20:00 UTC more likely to reflect thin books than sustained direction. The data cannot say why ETH underperformed BTC, and the near-flat funding rates give no clear signal of crowding on either side.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility, the size of the swings that actually happened scaled to a yearly figure, was 39.3% for BTC and 50.1% for ETH. A desk would note that a -3.63% hour for BTC and a -5.20% hour for ETH occurred in the same hour of an otherwise calm, low-volume week, and ask whether its exits could have been filled in that hour. The Thursday lows would be the level to test in later weeks.
Funding. BTC perpetual funding averaged 0.0051% per eight hours, with a high of 0.01% and a low of -0.0033%. ETH averaged 0.0021%, with a high of 0.01% and a low of -0.0082%. Rates near zero indicate little persistent payment between long and short holders, so leverage was not clearly tilted.
What would change this reading
- If a later week trades below Thursday's lows of 24,800.00 for BTC and 1,626.01 for ETH, the mid-week recovery reads as a pause rather than a floor.
- If volume returns towards its prior twelve-week average while BTC holds above its weekly open of 25,925.54, the gain gains credibility; low volume leaves it thin.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio keeps falling beyond this week's -3.36%, the divergence becomes a trend rather than one week's gap.
- If funding moves well above 0.01% per eight hours in either asset, crowding that this week did not show would start to appear.
Terms
- close location
- where the weekly close sits between the week's low and high, as a percentage; 75.5% means it closed near the top of the range
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over a period, expressed as a yearly percentage
- perpetual funding
- a regular payment between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract that keeps its price close to the spot price