Bitcoin Weekend Trading Volume Drops to Record Low of 16% This Year

The drop comes in the wake of the launch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded-funds, which appears to have shifted the periods when Bitcoin is traded to be more in line with the schedule of traditional equity exchanges and has lowered its price volatility.

Bitcoin weekend trading has hit an all-time low in 2024, a shift that’s being attributed to the launch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded-funds and the collapse of crypto-friendly banks.

According to data from cryptocurrency research firm Kaiko, just 16% of Bitcoin trades occurred over the weekend in 2024, the lowest level on record. This marks a significant departure from the past, when weekend trading often accounted for a quarter or more of total volume.

One of crypto’s unique characteristics is that, unlike stocks, it trades around the clock, seven days a week. In the past, Bitcoin trading gained notoriety for its “Wild Weekends,” where the digital currency would experience large price fluctuations.

But that phenomenon seems to be cooling, as Bitcoin’s weekend trading volume has declined from a high of 28% in 2019. The launch of Bitcoin ETFs is likely a big reason why.

“It’s a trend that has been going on for years, but has been exacerbated by ETFs,” Kaiko Senior Analyst Dessislava Aubert told Blockworks in an email.

Bitcoin ETFs hit the market with approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at the beginning of 2024 and have been a hot ticket with investors ever since, leading the price of Bitcoin to skyrocket to a record high in March. While a portion of those gains have been pared, the largest cryptocurrency is still up about 45% in 2024 to around $61,000.

Unlike most crypto tokens that can be traded anytime on exchanges such as Binance, the Bitcoin ETFs follow the schedule of the traditional stock exchange that they are traded on — which means no weekend trading.

“The Bitcoin ETFs trade during the hours of 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, which is when the authorized participants are able to submit creation or redemption orders,” a recent report from Kaiko noted.

The proportion of Bitcoin traded on weekdays between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. increased to 6.7% from 4.5% in the fourth quarter of 2023, Kaiko said. That’s the period known as the benchmark fixing window, when the owners of the ETFs determine the price of Bitcoin and then use it to calculate the ETF’s net asset value.

However, Kaiko’s report also pointed to the collapse of Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank in March as another factor contributing to lower trading volume on weekends.

“Market makers are no longer able to use the banks’ 24/7 payment networks to buy and sell crypto in real time, which may have also impacted weekend trading,” the report said.

“The weekend/weekday gap is likely to persist as market makers, who derive their revenues from large amounts of trades earning the bid-ask spread, are less incentivized to provide liquidity in a low volume environment,” the report added.

Another recent report from Kaiko highlighted the institutional adoption of crypto through Bitcoin ETFs, which has led to drastically lower price volatility.

When Bitcoin last reached record highs in November 2021, volatility surged to almost 106%. After Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $73,798 in March amid optimism about the ETFs, volatility was just 40%.

The trend of lower volatility, and the fact that it has remained under 50% since the beginning of 2023, indicates that Bitcoin is becoming a more mature asset, according to Kaiko.

“While it’s too early to suggest that this is the new normal, changes to Bitcoin’s market structure over the past year may help explain why price action has been relatively ‘boring,'” the report concluded.