Bitcoin (BTC), the leading cryptocurrency by market value and trading volumes, is supposed to be relatively steady compared to other digital assets, protecting a trader’s portfolio from wild swings in the broader market.
However, bitcoin has been more volatile than ether (ETH) recently.
Bitcoin’s annualized 30-day historical or realized volatility rose to nearly 60% late last week, surpassing ether’s 30-day realized volatility by nearly 10 percentage points. That’s the highest spread in at least a year, according to veri tracked by Paris-based Kaiko. Historical volatility indicates the degree of price turbulence observed over a specific period.
The bitcoin-ether volatility spread flipped positive weeks after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) greenlighted nearly a dozen spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), allowing traders to take exposure to the cryptocurrency without owning it.
Since then, traders have been squarely focused on the activity in the spot ETFs, with net inflows breeding upside volatility in bitcoin and the broader crypto market. In the meantime, the