Bitcoin Volatility Now Tied to Wall Street's Schedule
A decade of data has shown that Bitcoin's volatility is increasingly following Wall Street's clock. Research found that between 2022 and 2025, the nine hours from 13:00 to 21:59 UTC accounted for 50.6% of Bitcoin's daily realized variance.
This represents a significant increase from 38.4% in 2016-2018, indicating that price discovery has become increasingly concentrated during these hours.
The study used data from Kraken's XBT/USD market between 2016 and 2025 and found that the shift extends beyond higher activity during American business hours. Bitcoin's volatility peak now moves when New York changes its clocks and fades when the New York Stock Exchange closes, tying the market's most active period increasingly closely to the US equity calendar.
The researchers used US daylight-saving transitions to distinguish Wall Street's influence from activity that simply happens to occur during similar hours. The study found that during 2022-2025, Bitcoin's most volatile hour moved from 14:00 UTC during US daylight-saving time to 15:00 UTC during standard time, moving with the shift in the American trading session.