Bitcoin (BTC) 20-day volatility: the current reading and its track record

Data as of 2026-10-16

BTC’s current 20-day volatility reading and what that signal has historically been followed by.

This page covers Bitcoin (BTC) — its current 20-day volatility reading and the measured historical record of what BTC 20-day volatility extremes were followed by.

How to read this. These figures are measured only on the four crypto assets currently covered by this site — coins that survived and grew large. Many coins from the same years collapsed or disappeared and would not be here to measure. Read every number below as a property of this surviving sample, not a universal rule, and never as advice.

All figures are ‘excess’ returns — measured relative to each instrument’s own historical drift, not relative to the market. This is not alpha and not a market-beating claim; it isolates the signal from the instrument’s background trend. Measured from the first day each signal appeared (not its most extreme point), so it reflects what was knowable in real time.

When BTC was at a high extreme

BTC has only 9 past episodes on this signal — too few to characterise on their own. Showing the pattern across all four crypto assets instead.

Across 20 past episodes where a crypto asset was at a high extreme on this signal, the close 20 days later beat the crypto asset’s own trailing drift by 5.85 percentage points on average (60% of episodes beat drift).

the asset forward excess return vs its own drift after high-extreme 20-day volatility readings, by horizon.
horizon	excess vs own drift	beat-drift rate	episodes with a complete horizon
1 day	-0.48%	40%	20
5 days	-3.31%	50%	20
20 days	+5.85%	60%	20

When BTC was at a low extreme

BTC has only 18 past episodes on this signal — too few to characterise on their own. Showing the pattern across all four crypto assets instead.

Across 97 past episodes where a crypto asset was at a low extreme on this signal, the 94 with a complete 20-day forward window lagged the crypto asset’s own trailing drift by 7.10 percentage points on average (32% of those 94 beat drift).

the asset forward excess return vs its own drift after low-extreme 20-day volatility readings, by horizon.
horizon	excess vs own drift	beat-drift rate	episodes with a complete horizon
1 day	-0.46%	39%	97
5 days	-0.69%	40%	97
20 days	-7.10%	32%	94

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