Week of 30 September 2024: Bitcoin falls 4.24% and Ether 8.19% on below-average volume
When both assets fall for a week on lighter-than-usual volume, what can the price path and funding data say about the character of the decline, and what can they not say?
BTC fell from 65,602.01 to 62,819.91 (-4.24%), ETH from 2,657.62 to 2,440.03 (-8.19%). Both peaked at the Monday open and bottomed Thursday 3 October. Dollar volume ran below the prior 12-week average for both, at 0.88x for BTC and 0.76x for ETH.
What the data shows. Both assets set their weekly highs in the week's first hour, 00:00 UTC Monday 30 September (BTC 65,618.80, ETH 2,663.50), and did not trade back above them. The lows arrived on Thursday 3 October: BTC 59,828.11 at 13:00 UTC, ETH 2,310.00 at 15:00 UTC. The weekly ranges were 9.68% for BTC and 15.30% for ETH. The worst day was Tuesday 1 October (BTC -3.98%, ETH -5.94%) and the best was Friday 4 October (BTC +2.19%, ETH +2.75%). The two moved closely hour by hour (correlation 0.90), but ETH lost an extra 3.95 percentage points, taking the ETH/BTC ratio down 4.12%. Against 346 recorded weeks, this return sat at the 22nd percentile for BTC and the 16th for ETH: a weak week, not an extreme one.
What it does not show. Trading activity was light for both (BTC 10.52bn, 0.88 times its prior twelve-week average; ETH 4.61bn, 0.76 times), and light volume cannot tell a desk whether the decline was driven by broad selling or simply by thin books. The data identifies no cause, no buyer or seller type, and nothing about what followed the close.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility, the size of the swings that actually happened scaled to a yearly figure, was 42.3% for BTC and 53.8% for ETH, so the week was not violent. Both closes landed in the middle third of the weekly range (BTC 51.7%, ETH 36.8%), not at the lows, so the week did not end in capitulation. Three of the prior four weeks had been up for both assets, so this decline interrupts a run rather than extending a slide.
Ether against Bitcoin. ETH's larger loss came with a negative ratio change (-4.12%), and the gap shows up in distance from the highs: BTC closed 14.62% below its 52-week high, ETH 40.02% below. The relative weakness is measurable; its origin is not.
What would change this reading
- If a later week trades below BTC 59,828.11 or ETH 2,310.00, the Thursday lows become a level that failed rather than a base.
- If volume returns to or above the prior twelve-week average while price keeps falling, the decline gains a participation signal it lacked this week.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio recovers the 4.12% lost here, this week reads as an ETH-specific extension rather than a shift in the pair.
- If a later week closes back above the Monday opens of 65,602.01 (BTC) and 2,657.62 (ETH), the fall reads as absorbed.
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 22nd percentile means 22% of the 346 recorded weeks were weaker
- funding rate
- the periodic payment between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract; positive means longs pay shorts