Week of 24 March 2025: Bitcoin loses 4.29% and Ether 9.88%, both closing near weekly lows
When both assets fall on below-average volume and finish the week near their lows, what does that say about the decline's pace, and what can it not establish?
BTC fell from 86,082.50 to 82,389.99 (-4.29%) and ETH from 2,005.99 to 1,807.74 (-9.88%). Both weekly lows arrived at 22:00 UTC on Sunday 30 March, two hours before the week ended. Dollar volume ran at 0.63 times (BTC) and 0.52 times (ETH) the prior twelve-week average.
What the data shows. The week began with gains: Monday 24 March was the best day for both assets (BTC +1.64%, ETH +3.75%) and produced both weekly highs (BTC 88,765.43 at 14:00 UTC, ETH 2,104.11 at 11:00 UTC). The direction then reversed. Friday 28 March was the worst day (BTC -3.22%, ETH -5.33%), and ETH's largest hourly move, -3.11%, came at 04:00 UTC that morning; BTC's largest, -1.11%, came earlier, at 13:00 UTC on Wednesday 26 March. Both assets set their lows at 22:00 UTC on Sunday 30 March (BTC 81,565.00, ETH 1,767.69) and closed in the lower third of their weekly ranges (BTC 11.5%, ETH 11.9%). Ranges were 8.83% for BTC and 19.03% for ETH. Against 371 weeks of history, the weekly returns sit at the 20th percentile for BTC and the 13th for ETH. Volume was below the prior twelve-week average for both (0.63x BTC, 0.52x ETH).
What it does not show. Price candles record the path, not the cause. Nothing here identifies who was selling or whether the selling was forced. The absence of open-interest or order-book data means the size of any positioning cannot be measured. Because both lows came two hours before the week closed, the data cannot say whether the decline had run its course.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility, the size of the swings that actually happened scaled to a yearly figure, was 32.4% for BTC and 51.8% for ETH, while the largest single hourly moves were modest (-1.11% and -3.11%). The decline was built from sustained drift across days rather than a few sharp hours, which is a different risk profile from a shock week and is not captured by hourly move limits alone. Funding stayed close to zero on average (BTC 0.0015% per eight hours, ETH 0.0021%), so neither side paid a heavy running cost to hold.
Ether against Bitcoin. ETH fell 5.59 percentage points more than BTC, and the ETH/BTC ratio, the price of one Ether in Bitcoin terms, dropped 5.84%. Hourly correlation was 0.73, close but not lockstep. ETH stands 55.76% below its 52-week high against 23.94% for BTC.
What would change this reading
- If a later week trades below this week's lows (BTC 81,565.00, ETH 1,767.69), Sunday's late low reads as a step down rather than a floor.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio falls further, the decline has become a relative move rather than a broad one, which changes which hedge matters.
- If volume rises back above the prior twelve-week average while price holds above the lows, this week reads as low-conviction drift.
- If funding turns negative while price continues lower, longs stop paying shorts, and the cost structure of holding a losing long changes.
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 measured in Bitcoin; it falls when Ether underperforms Bitcoin
- percentile
- where this week's return ranks against the 371 weeks of history in the data; a low percentile means most past weeks were higher