With January in the books, let’s look at how BTC and ETH performed to start off the new year.
Both had notable early to mid-month gains, but we closed out the month at modest levels. The seasonal return for BTC in January is slightly above its mean (-0.28%):
while the seasonal return for ETH in January is quite far below the mean (35.16% — Note: the median return in January is not far off, at 32.69%):
One interesting observation is that 2024 (so far) appears to be a fractal of 2019.
The BTC performance in January of 2024 very closely resembles (at least directionally) the 2019 analog. With ETH, it isn’t as immediately obvious, especially since the first third of the month is quite out of phase with the 2019 analog. However, the correlation greatly improves after that initial period:
2019 stands out as the best analog, ironically, as we muddy the chart by adding more comps:
We know that history doesn’t repeat, and this is evident as there are at times large differences between the 2019 and 2024 analogs. Indeed, the state of the crypto markets as well as the global economy are vastly different now. But will history rhyme as we gear up for a renewed bull cycle? I hope so, because February of 2019 was a rather fruitful month for the majors.
As always, time will tell.