Week of 10 March 2025: Bitcoin rises 2.28% while Ether falls 6.60%
When Bitcoin and Ether part ways in the same week, sharing one low but not one high, what does the split reveal about where each market actually stands?
BTC gained 2.28% to 82,574.53 while ETH lost 6.60% to 1,887.00, a gap of 8.88 percentage points. Both bottomed at 00:00 UTC on Tuesday 11 March, then separated: BTC's high came Friday, ETH's Monday. Volume was below the prior twelve-week average for both.
What the data shows. BTC rose 2.28%, from 80,734.48 to 82,574.53, ending three down weeks out of the prior four, the last of which cost 14.36%. ETH fell 6.60%, from 2,020.43 to 1,887.00. The two markets shared one low: both bottomed at 00:00 UTC on Tuesday 11 March (BTC 76,606.00, ETH 1,754.28) and both scored their best day that day (BTC +5.52%, ETH +3.13%). From there they separated. BTC's high came on Friday 14 March at 15:00 UTC (85,309.71), and it closed at 68.6% of the week range, in the upper third. ETH's high came first, on Monday 10 March at 09:00 UTC (2,152.40), so the rest of the week was a slide, and ETH closed at 33.3% of its range, in the lower third. Hour by hour the two still moved together (correlation 0.80), but the ETH/BTC ratio, the price of one Ether measured in Bitcoin, fell 8.69%.
What it does not show. Trading was light for both: BTC's dollar volume of 17.32 billion was 0.86 times its prior twelve-week average, ETH's 8.95 billion was 0.74 times. A divergence on thin volume is weaker evidence than one on heavy volume. Nothing here identifies who traded, why the assets split, or whether it lasts.
What a careful desk would check. At the close BTC was 23.77% below its 52-week high, ETH 53.83% below; the two sit in different parts of their ranges, which matters for any hedge sized between them. Funding, the periodic payment between perpetual futures longs and shorts, stayed near zero (BTC 0.0024% per eight hours, ETH 0.0015%), so neither side looks crowded. Realised volatility, the size of the swings that actually happened, was 62.5% for BTC and 91.9% for ETH.
Ether against Bitcoin. ETH's weekly return ranked at the 21st percentile of 369 recorded weeks, BTC's at the 60th. ETH has now fallen three weeks running, -10.70%, -19.77% and this week's -6.60%, with the smallest loss in the most recent week.
What would change this reading
- If BTC closes a later week back below its weekly low of 76,606.00, this week's recovery loses its base.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio stops falling after the week's 8.69% drop, the divergence reads as a pause rather than a rerating.
- If volume returns towards its prior twelve-week average while the two returns stay apart, the split gains credibility.
- If ETH closes above its weekly high of 2,152.40, the Monday peak stops capping the market.
Terms
- ETH/BTC ratio
- the price of one Ether measured in Bitcoin; it rises when Ether outperforms Bitcoin and falls when it underperforms
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over a period, expressed as a yearly percentage
- percentile
- the share of past recorded weeks with a lower weekly return; a low percentile means the week was weak by historical standards