A narrow range is a finding rather than an absence of one. It is the condition in which an allocator can accumulate without moving the price, and it is also the condition in which volatility is sold too cheaply, because the recent past is the input everybody uses.
$66,277
Thirty-day high close
$58,524
Thirty-day low close
13%
Range, high to low
38%
Realized volatility, annualized
Source: Coinbase Exchange daily closes. Computed by Institutional Asset Journal.
Bitcoin daily close
Coinbase Exchange, in dollars, last 120 days.
Source: Coinbase Exchange daily closes. Computed by Institutional Asset Journal.
Why realized rather than implied
Implied volatility is a price, set by whoever is selling options, and it carries a risk premium. Realized volatility is an observation: what the asset actually did. For sizing a position the second is the input, and for judging whether options are expensive the difference between the two is.
How this was measured
- Prices are Coinbase Exchange daily closes, chosen over an aggregated mid because a single regulated venue is a defined measurement and a blend of venues is not. Realized volatility is the standard deviation of daily logarithmic returns over the stated window, annualized by the square root of 365 rather than 252, because this market trades every day. Correlations are Pearson coefficients on daily log returns over the same window. Drawdown is measured from the highest prior daily close in the series, not from an intraday high. A piece dated one day uses closes through the day before.
