Week of 16 October 2023: Bitcoin rises 10.45% and ends 5.11% below its 52-week high
After three down weeks in four, what does a double-digit weekly gain on above-average volume show about the shift, and what can it not show about its durability?
BTC rose from 27,154.14 to 29,992.46 (+10.45%) and ETH from 1,557.78 to 1,663.70 (+6.80%), both closing in the upper third of their weekly ranges. BTC dollar volume was 1.53 times its prior 12-week average. The return ranked at the 86th percentile of the 296 weeks recorded before it.
What the data shows. BTC set its low of 27,112.66 in the first hour of Monday 16 October and its high of 30,379.99 on Saturday 21 October at 18:00 UTC. The close at 29,992.46 sat at 88.1% of the week's 12.05% range, in the upper third. The climb was steady rather than violent: the best day, Monday, added 4.96% and the worst day, Tuesday 17 October, lost only 0.37%, so no daily loss exceeded 0.4%. The largest hourly move was +2.44%, early Monday UTC. Dollar volume reached 8.48 billion, 1.53 times the prior twelve-week average. ETH rose 6.80% to 1,663.70, closing at 96.8% of its range, though its high came only on Sunday 22 October at 22:00 UTC. The two moved together at 0.77 hourly correlation, and ETH lagged: the ETH/BTC ratio fell 3.31%.
What it does not show. The candles record where price went, not what moved it. Nothing here identifies who was buying, whether the demand was new money or the closing of short positions, or whether the gain will hold. A high return percentile describes the past distribution only; it carries no probability for the following week.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility, the size of the swings that actually happened scaled to a yearly figure, was 38.6% for BTC and 35.9% for ETH. Those are modest readings against a 10.45% weekly gain, which is what a rise built from small daily steps looks like. Three of the prior four weeks were down for both assets, so the week reversed a short decline rather than extending one. Volume ran 1.53 times the prior average for BTC but only 1.10 for ETH, which asks whether participation was concentrated in one asset.
Funding. BTC perpetual funding averaged 0.0003% per eight hours, near zero, within a range of -0.011% to 0.0096%. A near-zero average means longs and shorts paid each other roughly in balance, so the price rise was not accompanied by a visible rise in the cost of holding leveraged longs. ETH funding averaged 0.0045%, positive but small. Funding records the cost of a position, not its size, and the data has no open-interest figures.
What would change this reading
- If BTC closes a later week below its weekly open of 27,154.14, the gain reads as a one-week reversal rather than a change in direction.
- If BTC trades below the week's low of 27,112.66, the rise has failed at its own starting point.
- If funding rises well above the 0.0003% average while price stops advancing, longs begin paying for a position that is no longer rising.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio falls further from its -3.31% weekly change, the lag between the two assets is deepening rather than closing.
Terms
- 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 86th percentile means 86% of the 296 past weeks were lower
- perpetual funding
- a regular payment between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract; near zero means the two sides paid roughly in balance