Week of 11 December 2023: Bitcoin and Ether fall over 5%, ending Bitcoin's four up weeks
When a market that has risen for four weeks opens at its high and closes near its low, what does the week's structure reveal, and what can it not tell us about what follows?
BTC fell from 43,789.50 to 41,374.65 (-5.51%) and ETH from 2,352.39 to 2,196.52 (-6.63%). Both set their weekly highs in Monday's first hour and traded below them all week. Volume ran 1.47 times (BTC) and 1.42 times (ETH) the prior twelve-week average.
What the data shows. The week's high came immediately: BTC printed 43,804.50 and ETH 2,355.00 in the hour starting 00:00 UTC on Monday 11 December, and neither asset traded back to those levels. The largest hourly move was -2.94% for BTC and -4.37% for ETH, both in the hour starting 02:00 UTC on Monday. Monday was also the worst day (BTC -5.79%, ETH -5.41%), with BTC's low of 40,222.00 arriving at 19:00 UTC the same day. ETH's low came later, at 2,144.32 on Wednesday 13 December, which was also the best day for both assets (BTC +3.32%, ETH +2.57%). The two moved closely (hourly correlation 0.89), and ETH fell slightly further, taking the ETH/BTC ratio down 1.18%. Both closed in the lower third of their weekly ranges.
What it does not show. The structure — high at the open, close near the low — describes the path, not a cause. Nothing here identifies who sold or whether the sellers were leveraged positions unwinding. The Wednesday bounce does not tell us whether 40,222.00 was a durable low. The data also carries no open-interest or order-book figures, so the size of any positioning behind the move cannot be measured.
What a careful desk would check. The four prior weeks were all up for BTC (0.80%, 0.23%, 6.74%, 9.55%), so this was the first down week in a run, ranking at the 19th percentile of 304 weeks of history. ETH's prior four weeks were mixed (-1.62%, 2.53%, 6.33%, 7.27%). After that stretch, a desk would ask whether its sizing reflected the possibility of a -5.51% week and whether the Monday 02:00 UTC hour would have triggered stops before any recovery.
Funding. BTC perpetual funding stayed narrowly positive all week, averaging 0.0104% per eight hours (high 0.0147%, low 0.0100%), and ETH averaged 0.0112%. Longs were paying shorts, but at a small rate relative to the week's 5.51% and 6.63% price declines.
What would change this reading
- If BTC trades below its weekly low of 40,222.00 in a later week, the Monday selling reads as the start of a larger move rather than a one-week pullback.
- If either asset recovers above its weekly open — 43,789.50 for BTC, 2,352.39 for ETH — while volume returns towards its prior twelve-week average, the week looks more like a reset than a change of trend.
- If funding turns negative while prices stay near the weekly lows, the regular payment between long and short holders reverses direction, which would signal a change in the crowded side of the trade.
Terms
- close location
- where the week's closing price sits between its high and low; lower third means it finished near the bottom of the week's range
- percentile
- the share of past weeks with a lower value; the 19th percentile means most of the 304 prior weeks recorded a higher value than this week
- perpetual funding
- a regular payment between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract that keeps its price close to the spot price