Week of 3 March 2025: Bitcoin falls 14.36% and Ether 19.77% into the week's close
When a week falls from its first hour to its last, what does the shape of that decline reveal about where risk sat in the market, and what does price data alone leave unanswered?
BTC fell from 94,269.99 to 80,734.37 (-14.36%) and ETH from 2,518.12 to 2,020.41 (-19.77%). Both set their weekly high in the first hour on Monday 3 March and their low at 23:00 UTC on Sunday 9 March. The BTC return ranked at the 4th percentile of 368 weeks of history.
What the data shows. Both assets opened at their high and closed near their low. BTC's high of 94,416.46 and ETH's high of 2,523.56 came at 00:00 UTC on Monday 3 March; the lows of 80,000.0 and 1,989.66 came at 23:00 UTC on Sunday 9 March. The weekly range was 18.02% for BTC and 26.83% for ETH. Monday was the worst day for both (BTC -8.54%, ETH -14.66%) and Wednesday 5 March the best (BTC +3.81%, ETH +3.23%). The largest hourly move for BTC was -4.9% in the hour starting 00:00 UTC on Friday 7 March; for ETH it was -4.29% in the hour starting 14:00 UTC on Monday. Both closed near the bottom of their range, 5.1% and 5.8% of the way up. BTC dollar volume was 24.87 billion, 1.25 times its prior twelve-week average, while ETH volume was 11.66 billion, 0.95 times its average. The two returns sat at the 4th and 5th percentiles of 368 weeks of history.
What it does not show. Price candles record where the market went, not why. Nothing here identifies who was selling, whether any selling was forced, or whether the Sunday low of 80,000.0 marks the end of the move.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility, the swings that actually happened scaled to a yearly figure, reached 92.6% for BTC and 101.3% for ETH. A position sized for an ordinary week would be tested by a 4.9% hourly move. BTC sits 25.47% below its 52-week high and ETH 50.56% below, so the same weekly loss removes different amounts of remaining value in each asset.
Ether against Bitcoin. The ETH/BTC ratio, the price of Ether in Bitcoin, fell 6.31%, and ETH underperformed BTC by 5.41 percentage points. Hourly correlation was 0.87, a close reading, so the extra decline came inside a shared direction rather than a separate one. ETH volume stayed below its prior twelve-week average while BTC volume rose above.
What would change this reading
- If a later week trades below 80,000.0 for BTC, the Sunday low reads as a pause inside a larger decline.
- If ETH keeps losing ground against BTC beyond the 6.31% ratio drop, the week marks a change in relative risk rather than a one-off gap.
- If BTC recovers to its weekly open of 94,269.99 while volume stays near 1.25 times its prior twelve-week average, the fall reads as a repricing that was absorbed.
- If funding turns more negative than -0.0055% per eight hours, the balance between short and long holders has shifted from this week's reading.
Terms
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over a period, expressed as a yearly percentage
- ETH/BTC ratio
- the price of one Ether expressed in Bitcoin, showing which asset held value better
- percentile
- the share of past weeks with a lower value; the 4th percentile means 4% of past weeks were lower