Week of 6 January 2025: Bitcoin loses 3.88% and Ether 10.14% on below-average volume
When both assets fall for a week on lighter-than-usual volume and close near their lows, what does the price data show about direction, and what can it not tell us about cause or conviction?
BTC fell from 98,363.61 to 94,545.06 (-3.88%) and ETH from 3,636.00 to 3,267.30 (-10.14%). Both hit their weekly lows in the same hour, Thursday 9 January at 20:00 UTC. Trading volume ran below the prior 12-week average for both, while BTC closed 12.67% below its 52-week high.
What the data shows. The week opened in the upper part of its range and closed in its lower third. BTC peaked at 102,724.38 in the first hour of Tuesday 7 January and bottomed at 91,203.67 in the same hour as ETH's low, Thursday 9 January at 20:00 UTC. That low preceded a 2.29% BTC move, the week's largest. BTC's worst day was Tuesday 7 January (-5.17%) and its best was Monday 6 January (+3.94%). ETH followed the same direction but fell further: its worst day, also Tuesday 7 January, took 8.3% off. Hourly correlation between the two was 0.89, and the ETH/BTC ratio dropped 6.51%, so this was a broad decline with Ether weaker. Both closes sat in the lower third of their weekly ranges. Volume was 0.78 times BTC's and 0.80 times ETH's prior 12-week averages. BTC's weekly return ranked at the 22nd percentile of the 360 weeks on record, ETH's at the 12th.
What it does not show. Price candles record direction and distance, not motive. Lighter volume is consistent with fewer participants, but the data cannot say who was selling or whether the selling was forced or patient. Funding was slightly positive for BTC (0.0069% per eight hours on average) and stayed positive for ETH, which says longs paid shorts a small amount; it does not size those positions.
What a careful desk would check. BTC sits 12.67% below its 52-week high and ETH 20.05% below, while the prior four weeks were mixed for each asset (two up, two down), so this week cannot be read as a clean continuation of a trend. Realised volatility, the yearly-scaled size of actual swings, was 47.7% for BTC and 61.3% for ETH. A desk would ask whether its stop distances and margin buffers fit the 12.63% and 18.58% weekly ranges, and how much of the loss accumulated after Thursday's shared low rather than before it.
What would change this reading
- If later weeks trade below Thursday's lows of 91,203.67 for BTC and 3,158.00 for ETH, this week's shared low reads as a step down rather than a floor.
- If volume returns towards its prior 12-week average while prices hold above those lows, the week's decline looks less like conviction.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio stops falling after its 6.51% drop, the weaker Ether leg of this week was temporary rather than a change in relative direction.
- If BTC funding turns negative while price holds near its close of 94,545.06, the small carry cost for longs reverses.
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 360 weeks on record were lower
- funding rate
- the periodic payment between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract; positive means longs pay shorts