Week of 2 June 2025: Bitcoin ends flat at 105,734 after a mid-week drop, Ether falls 1.16%
When a week closes almost where it opened, what does the path inside the week — a sharp Thursday fall and a Friday recovery — reveal that the flat return hides?
BTC rose 0.09% (105,642.93 to 105,734.00) while ETH fell 1.16% (2,539.20 to 2,509.83), so the two moved in different directions. Both hit their worst day on Thursday 5 June (BTC -3.05%, ETH -7.43%) and their largest hourly drop in the same hour. BTC dollar volume was 9.96 billion, a ratio of 0.68 to its prior 12-week average.
What the data shows. BTC set its high of 106,794.67 on Tuesday 3 June at 15:00 UTC and its low of 100,372.26 two days later, on Thursday 5 June at 20:00 UTC — a range of 6.4%, with the low coming after the high. That Thursday hour was also the week's largest hourly move for both assets: -1.4% for BTC and -5.14% for ETH. Friday 6 June was BTC's best day (+2.74%) and BTC closed at 83.5% of its weekly range, in the upper third. ETH closed at 43.0%, in the middle third. The assets moved closely but not identically (hourly correlation 0.79), and the ETH/BTC ratio fell 1.24%, so ETH lagged a slightly stronger BTC. Both weekly returns sat near the middle of history: 46th percentile for BTC and 44th for ETH across 381 weeks.
What it does not show. The candles record the shape of the move, not its cause. Nothing here identifies who bought or sold on Thursday or whether the Friday recovery represents new demand. Volume was below the prior 12-week average for both assets — BTC's dollar volume was 0.68 times that average and ETH's 0.95 — so the week's path was traced in thinner trading than the prior three months. ETH sits 38.58% below its 52-week high while BTC is 5.41% below, but the data cannot explain the gap.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility — the size of the swings that actually happened, scaled to a yearly figure — was 61.1% for ETH against 31.1% for BTC, so ETH's swings ran roughly twice as large in yearly terms. The Thursday 20:00 UTC hour shows how quickly that difference acts: -5.14% for ETH in one hour. A desk would test whether its stops and margin buffers could have survived that hour, and would read BTC's close at 83.5% of the range separately from the week's near-zero return.
Funding. Perpetual funding — a regular payment between long and short holders that keeps contract prices near spot — averaged 0.0013% per eight hours for BTC and 0.0056% for ETH, both positive. Longs paid shorts on average, at a higher rate for the asset that fell.
What would change this reading
- If BTC trades below the week's low of 100,372.26 in a later week, Thursday's drop reads as the start of a leg down rather than a dip that was bought.
- If the ETH/BTC ratio falls further from its -1.24% weekly change, the divergence between the two assets is becoming a trend rather than a one-week gap.
- If volume rises back towards the prior 12-week average while prices hold near this week's closes, the recovery gains a firmer basis than thin trading provides.
- If ETH funding stays positive near 0.0056% while ETH price keeps falling, longs are paying to hold a losing side, which is worth watching for crowded positioning.
Terms
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over a period, expressed as a yearly percentage
- close location
- where the week's closing price sits between the week's low and high, as a percentage; the week's high would score the maximum
- perpetual funding
- a periodic payment between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract; positive means longs pay shorts