Week of 22 July 2024: Bitcoin ends flat while Ether falls 7.52% in the same seven days
When Bitcoin and Ether move in opposite directions over one week, what does the gap between them show, and what can it not establish about why they separated?
BTC rose from 68,165.35 to 68,249.88 (+0.12%) while ETH fell from 3,535.93 to 3,270.16 (-7.52%). The ETH/BTC ratio dropped 7.63%, and hourly correlation was 0.77. Dollar volume sat below the prior 12-week average for both assets, so the split happened on modest trading activity.
What the data shows. BTC traded in a 9.37% range, from a low of 63,456.70 on Thursday 25 July to a high of 69,399.99 on Saturday 27 July, and closed at 80.6% of that range, in the upper third. ETH took the opposite path: its high of 3,562.82 came in the week's first hour on Monday, 0.76% above its open, and its low of 3,087.53 arrived late on Thursday 25 July, so the high preceded the low. ETH's largest hourly move was -3.30% in the hour starting 01:00 UTC on Thursday. Both assets had their best day on Friday 26 July (BTC +3.20%, ETH +3.12%), so the recovery was shared, but the losses were not. ETH's weekly return ranked at the 18th percentile of the 336 weeks recorded; BTC's sat near the middle at the 47th percentile.
What it does not show. Price data records the size and timing of the divergence, not its cause. Nothing here identifies who was selling ETH or whether the move reflected position changes in one asset rather than a broad market shift. Volume below the prior 12-week average for both assets (0.94 times for BTC, 0.93 for ETH) means the move was not accompanied by unusual trading activity, but the data cannot say whether that makes it more or less meaningful.
What a careful desk would check. With BTC 7.24% below its 52-week high and ETH 19.61% below its own, the two assets sit at different distances from their peaks, which changes what a rebound would mean for each. Realised volatility, the size of actual swings scaled to a yearly figure, was higher for ETH (55.0% versus 44.8%), so ETH positions sized off BTC's volatility would have been too small for the week ETH actually delivered. Funding stayed positive for both, averaging 0.0076% per eight hours for BTC and 0.0066% for ETH, so longs paid shorts on average even as ETH fell.
Ether against Bitcoin. The ETH/BTC ratio fell 7.63%, with hourly correlation of 0.77, close but not identical. ETH set its high within the week's first hour and closed 7.52% below its open, while BTC closed slightly above its own.
What would change this reading
- If BTC closes a later week below its low of 63,456.70, the Thursday recovery reads as temporary rather than as a floor.
- If ETH recovers above its open of 3,535.93 while BTC holds near 68,249.88, the ratio decline reverses and the divergence narrows.
- If hourly correlation rises back towards 1.0 in later weeks, the two assets have re-coupled and the ETH/BTC hedge stops providing separation.
Terms
- ETH/BTC ratio
- the price of one Ether expressed in Bitcoin; a falling ratio means ETH is losing value relative to BTC
- 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; a low percentile means most past weeks saw a higher return