When Bitcoin Moves: Price Range by Trading Session

Research · Volatility · November 2026

New York is the session with the widest price range on every weekday, and Saturday is the quietest day of the week. The one weekend exception is Sunday night, which coincides with the weekly reopening of CME futures. This note describes size, not direction, and reports averages that were not tested against chance.

Bitcoin trades around the clock, but activity is not spread evenly. This note measures how large the average price range was in each part of each day, so that readers can see where the movement sat.

What we measured

The average range of a 30-minute Binance spot BTCUSDT bar, as a percentage of price, for each weekday and session. The window runs from 6 November 2025 to the 23:30 bar on 5 November 2026. Sessions are fixed UTC windows: Asia 00:00 to 08:00, London 08:00 to 13:30, New York 13:30 to 21:00, Late US 21:00 to 24:00. Sessions differ in length (Asia runs 8 hours, Late US 3), so they are compared on the range of a single bar, not on total session range. The all-week average bar range was 0.43%. Each cell shows the multiple of that average, so 1.00 times is 0.43% per bar. The quietest cell was Saturday London, at 0.23% per bar, and the widest was Thursday New York, at 0.66%.

What we found

Days ranked by whole-day range, busiest to quietest:

1. Friday, 1.17 times
2. Thursday, 1.15 times
3. Monday, 1.14 times
4. Wednesday, 1.11 times
5. Tuesday, 1.08 times
6. Sunday, 0.75 times
7. Saturday, 0.61 times

The five weekdays sit within 0.09 of each other (1.08 to 1.17 times), and we did not test whether that spread is larger than chance, so the order among the weekdays should not be read as meaningful. The smallest gap between a weekday and a weekend day is 0.33 (Tuesday, 1.08 times, against Sunday, 0.75 times).

• New York. On weekdays the session ran at 1.35 to 1.55 times the average (0.58% to 0.66% per bar), and rose from Monday to a Thursday high.
• London. Tuesday to Thursday sat below the average (0.89 to 0.95 times). Monday and Friday were at or above it.
• Asia. Monday was the busiest Asia session of the week, at 1.14 times.
• Friday evening. The Late US session ran at 0.74 times, the quietest weekday window.
• Saturday. Every session sat between 0.54 and 0.66 times the average. The quietest cell of the week was Saturday London, at 0.23% per bar.

Late Sunday

The Late US session on Sunday (21:00 to 24:00 UTC) ran at 1.28 times the average (0.55% per bar). It is the only Late US session of the week above the average: Monday to Friday ran at 0.74 to 0.97 times and Saturday at 0.62 times. It is also the highest of any session outside weekday New York hours, and roughly double the Sunday London session (0.65 times). The three earlier Sunday sessions were 0.58, 0.65 and 0.79 times. Over the day, Sunday still ranked sixth of seven. It coincides with the weekly reopening of CME futures on Sunday evening, at about 23:00 UTC in US winter time and 22:00 UTC in summer. This note does not test whether the reopening causes the rise.

The View From The Edge

Measured: over these 12 months on one venue, the weekday range sat mainly in New York hours, the weekend sessions ran below the average, and Sunday night was the one exception. Judged: nothing yet. We do not know why the pattern looks this way, and we have not tested whether it will hold in another year.

This note makes no statement about direction and is not a forecast. It would be weakened by a recompute on another year or venue in which New York no longer ran above the other sessions, or in which Sunday night fell in line with the rest of the weekend.

Related reading: When Bitcoin Moves Most tested events and conditions, such as US inflation releases, against a model that already allowed for time of day and day of week. This note measures time of day and day of week directly.

Basis and limits

• Description, not a test. These are averages. We did not test whether differences between neighbouring cells are larger than chance, and the note makes no claim that they are.
• Averages. A mean is sensitive to a few very large bars, so one busy night could move a cell, and we did not check medians within cells. Consecutive bars are not independent.
• One year. The window is 12 months. A different year may give different multiples.
• One venue. Binance spot BTCUSDT only. Other venues and futures markets may differ.
• Range is not risk. An average bar range says nothing about direction, gaps between bars or the size of a single large move.
• Clock times. Session boundaries are fixed UTC windows, so New York's cash open falls at 13:30 UTC in US winter time and 14:30 UTC in summer, and the CME reopening at 23:00 UTC in winter and 22:00 UTC in summer. Real activity does not start and stop at the boundaries.
• Sample size. In the calendar window each weekday appears 52 times and Thursday 53. We have not checked for missing bars.
• Figures in this note have not been independently reproduced.

Alderlux provides education and information only. We do not provide regulated financial advice, investment recommendations, legal or tax advice. Alderlux is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. Past performance is not indicative of future results.