Bitcoin's price is most volatile at night says study

The busiest time to buy and sell bitcoin has been figured out, says a new report.

Data recorded over the past two years shows that bitcoin’s price was most volatile between midnight and 1 am UTC or Coordinated Universal Time. This was according to findings from Crypto Data Download, a crypto analytics company based in the US. The reason? Geography.

UTC, not to be confused with GMT–although the two do sometimes overlap–sits in Europe. While it might be midnight in Europe, Asia, which is a number of hours ahead is waking up, and the US–which is behind–is just about to log off for the day. The small overlap between the two regions, says the report, is the cause for the spikes in price.

The above chart shows just how much price activity there is during the midnight to 1am period. For most of the day, price movement remains fairly stable across the two year period. But come the witching hour, things start to move. These moments are often the result of a large movement, typically by a whale, in one direction or another.

Digging into the data a bit further, on 320 days out of the last two years, bitcoin's daily high or low landed between the hours of 1 am and 2 am. And on 100 other days, the daily high or low landed between midnight and 1 am.

In short, if you're buying around midnight, you might be hitting a daily high or a daily low—so tread carefully.