Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and Solana Align More Closely with Wall Street Hours

New research using hourly price data from Kraken’s XBT/USD market reveals that Bitcoin’s volatility has become increasingly concentrated during the U.S. equity trading session. The shift, observed over the period 2016‑2025, mirrors the institutionalization of crypto through regulated products and suggests that price discovery is moving toward Wall Street hours.

Volatility Concentration in U.S. Hours

Between 2022 and 2025, the nine‑hour window from 13:00 to 21:59 UTC accounted for 50.6% of Bitcoin’s daily realized variance, up from 38.4% in the 2016‑2018 period. This window represents only 37.5% of the day, indicating a growing concentration of price movement during the U.S. cash‑equity session.

Impact of Daylight‑Saving Changes

When U.S. clocks shift for daylight‑saving time, the hour of peak Bitcoin volatility moves accordingly—from 14:00 UTC in daylight‑saving time to 15:00 UTC in standard time—aligning with the New York market open. No comparable shift was observed in the earlier period.

Effect of NYSE Holidays

On U.S. market holidays, Bitcoin’s share of variance during U.S. hours fell by 13.9 percentage points, dropping from 55.7% to about 41.9%, bringing the distribution close to an even spread across the day.

Broader Market Trends

The same concentration pattern appears in six of seven other long‑listed crypto assets on Kraken. Notable increases include:

• Ethereum: US‑hours variance share rose from 41.8% to 48.2%.
• XRP: increased from 37.2% to 46.2%.
• Solana, Cardano, Dogecoin and Chainlink also showed significant upward trends.
• Litecoin was the only asset without a statistically significant change.

Institutional Drivers

The study does not pinpoint a single cause but highlights several potential institutional channels, such as ETF creation/redemption, futures activity, and market‑maker hedging. A statistical break in the volatility trend was identified in November 2021, while no clear break coincided with the launch of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 or the introduction of CME Bitcoin futures in December 2017.

Implications for Traders

Risk models assuming evenly distributed volatility may underestimate exposure during the U.S. session and overestimate it overnight. The narrowing of weekend volatility—Bitcoin’s weekend‑to‑weekday volatility ratio fell from 0.96 in 2016 to 0.60 in 2024—further widens the gap between continuously traded spot markets and derivatives tied to traditional market calendars.

Future Research

The analysis relies on data from a single exchange and ends in 2025. Confirmation across multiple venues and deeper order‑book data are needed to clarify the relative influence of specific institutional flows.