Bitcoin is still in a league of its own when its comes to its behavior in terms of fiat currencies such as the US dollar. However, one asset in particular shows almost 69% correlation to BTC monthly price gains, new data shows.
Data: BCH Mimics BTC Most Closely
Uploading findings to Twitter on September 24, analyst Skew noted that at present no other coin bears more than a 70% correlation to Bitcoin [coin_price] when it comes to gains.
The statistics shed new light on altcoin behavior, which previously tended to follow Bitcoin’s moves up and down.
“There is not a single crypto with a greater than 70% correlation of daily returns to Bitcoin on a 1 month basis,” Skew summarized in comments.
Under current conditions, the most closely-correlated altcoin to BTC is BCH. The token has a monthly correlation of 69.8%, followed by Ethereum on 59.8%.
The numbers appeared to take Skew by surprise, given that Bitcoin Cash is a hard fork of Bitcoin itself.
“Interestingly, BCH is more correlated to ETH than to BTC!” he added. Bitcoin Cash correlation to Ethereum stands at 84.2%.
There is not a single crypto with a greater than 70% correlation of daily returns to Bitcoin on a 1 month basis. The most correlated is now BCH. Interestingly, BCH is more correlated to ETH than to BTC! pic.twitter.com/NbYJW6areE
— skew (@skew_markets) September 24, 2019
The two most closely-correlated coins in the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap also involve Bitcoin Cash – but this time against Litecoin with 87.6%.
As far as BTC goes, Stellar and XRP are the least correlated in terms of gains, on 15.6% and 23% respectively.
Altcoins Fall In Line – Behind Bitcoin
September nonetheless witnessed a return to more standard behavior for altcoins versus the leading cryptocurrency. After several months when tokens seemed to act independently of BTC gains, the standard setup appeared to reappear as September progressed.
Previously, analysts en masse called the end of altcoins altogether, as many tokens put in big losses regardless of BTC wins or losses.
Several weeks ago, however, other research challenged the theory, noting that the majority of altcoins were back to tracking a market dictated to a great extent by Bitcoin.
“To me, it means that we are still in an early industry, where the movements between cryptocurrencies have not settled,” its author, trading bot HodlBot creator Anthony Xie wrote.
So while looking at this data is interesting and can tell us about the past, take it with a grain of salt when moving towards the future.
That future is in doubt once again this week as altcoins take a fresh hit and Bitcoin slides further towards multi-week lows. At press time, BTC/USD traded at just $9,420, its lowest since the end of August.
What do you think about the altcoin correlation data? Let us know in the comments below!
Images via Shutterstock, Twitter @Skew_markets