When is Bitcoin Most Volatile?

A user made a search on this site a few days ago wondering “what time of day is bitcoin most volatile?”

I’ll attempt to answer this question below, and if you have your own questions about cryptocurrencies, bitcoin trading, or related topics, please use the contact form on this site, or reply to this or other posts, and I’ll do my best to provide an answer.

It’s nearly impossible to tell what time of day the bitcoin price is most volatile. Since bitcoin is traded on a number of different exchanges around the world, against multiple fiat and cryptocurrencies, we would need to build a program able to get the data and run some statistical analysis to determine an empirical answer.  I suggest pulling data from a number of exchanges using their APIs, and putting this data into a statistical program: even excel will do. You can use the data to try to determine when standard deviation is the highest, etc. There is probably not a single answer, but the data will help you determine an answer that’s helpful to you, so that you can apply this data to improve your own trading process.

There are some other measures of bitcoin volatility to keep in mind. Check out The Bitcoin Volatility Index bitvol.info for a measure of historical volatility. I also think the numbers calculated by Deribit based on their options market are your best source to determine implied volatility.

When thinking about volatility, it’s important to recognize the different types of volatility. Historical volatility, also referred to as “statistical volatility” or “realized volatility”, measures volatility of an underlying by calculating standard deviation over specific periods of time. In comparison, “implied volatility” measures the future expectation of volatility. To calculate implied volatility, use an options pricing model such as Black-Scholes to solve for the volatility variable (this can be done in excel), or use a web based option price calculator.