◆ Finance
Bitcoin's price rally has a hidden rhythm. Here are the hours and days driving gains.
MarketsShareShare this articleCopy link
Bitcoin's price rally has a hidden rhythm. Here are the hours and days driving gains.
Bitcoin’s three-month rally shows a clear internal structure than most traders might expect, with performance clustering around specific trading windows across global sessions.
By Omkar Godbole|Edited by Shaurya Malwa May 6, 2026, 8:29 a.m. 2 min readMake preferred on Days and hours that drive BTC gains. (Claudio Schwarz/Unsplash)
What to know:
- Bitcoin’s roughly 30% rebound over the past three months has been driven mainly by trading during Asia-Pacific and U.S. hours, with Europe lagging.
- The single strongest hour for returns has been the 00:00–01:00 UTC window.
- Mondays have delivered by far the best average performance.
Those looking to trade bitcoin's price rise might want to pay attention to a simple but useful roadmap. It consists of three months of price data from Velo, which shows the recovery from the early February lows under $63,000 to over $80,000 has not been evenly distributed across the day.
Specific sessions, hours, and days have consistently outperformed and knowing those windows could sharpen traders' approach to the market.
Data source Velo breaks the trading day into three eight-hour sessions: APAC from 00:00 to 08:00 UTC, covering Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul, and Sydney; Europe from 08:00 to 16:00 UTC, covering London and Frankfurt; and the U.S. from 16:00 to 00:00 UTC, covering New York.
The session picture: APAC and the U.S. are leading the rally
APAC and U.S. hours have done the heavy lifting throughout the roughly 31% price rise since Feb. 6. APAC has produced a return of 13%, with the U.S. at 11.5% and Europe lagging significantly at just 6.5%.
The U.S. session's contribution is particularly notable because it was not always the leader. For most of February and March, returns during U.S. hours were mostly flat to negative, while APAC led the recovery. But that suddenly changed in early April, with the U.S. session flipping decisively positive.
Overall, the data shows that liquidity and momentum are strongest in APAC and the U.S. While this does not guarantee the continuation of trends, it does highlight when price discovery has been most active in the ongoing phase of the cycle, which some traders may find useful for market timing and risk management.
BTC's three-month price: session-wide performance breakup. (Velo)
Best and worst hours
The next obvious question is which hours are optimal for trading during these best-performing sessions.
The answer to that is the midnight UTC candle, which represents the price action between 00:00 and 01:00. This has been the best hour, producing an average return of 0.10% over three months.
That's a particularly interesting time window because it sits right at the intersection of two sessions: the late U.S. trading hours and early APAC, when fresh liquidity enters the market.
The second strongest hour is 15:00 UTC, deep in the European session, and the worst single hour is 06:00 UTC.
The best day to place a bullish bet: Monday
On a day-of-week basis, the data is unambiguous. Monday has been the strongest day of the week by a wide margin over the past three months, averaging a return of approximately 1.5%. Wednesday is a distant second at around 0.65%, and Friday is mildly positive at around 0.3%.
BTC's three-month rally: Day-wise performance breakup. (Velo)Thursday is the worst single day, averaging around negative 0.55%. Across the full three months, weekdays overall average approximately positive 0.4% while weekends average negative 0.25%.
To conclude, for bulls looking to time market entries, Monday has been the clearest edge in the data.
Bitcoin NewsMore For You
Crypto derivatives have converged with Wall Street. Equity perps could soon prove it.
By Omkar Godbole|Edited by Jamie Crawley1 hour agoCrypto and traditional finance are converging fast, with perpetual futures emerging as the strongest bridge between the two.
What to know:
- Crypto and traditional derivatives markets are rapidly converging, with perpetual futures at the center of that shift, panelists at Consensus Miami said.
- Once a niche crypto instrument, perps are now expanding toward equities, commodities, and beyond.
- Industry leaders say the regulatory policies and infrastructure enabling this crossover is already in...
Read full storyLatest Crypto News
Beyond humans: Lily Liu says Solana is building the payment rails for the 'AI machine economy'
24 minutes ago
Crypto custodian Taurus moves straight into EU capital markets with MiFID license in Cyprus
1 hour ago
Crypto derivatives have converged with Wall Street. Equity perps could soon prove it.
1 hour ago
North Korea terror victims escalate fight to seize $71 million from Aave hack
3 hours ago
XRP above $1.42 as traders watch 2025 breakout pattern that led to 66% rally
4 hours ago
Bitcoin tops $81,000 as Strategy mulls selling its BTC to fund dividend obligations
4 hours agoTop Stories
Consensus Miami Day 1: Real-time coverage and highlights from on the ground
19 hours ago
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says Clarity better than chaos as Senate hits key moment
16 hours ago
Michael Saylor's Strategy signals potential bitcoin sale to fund dividends obligations
9 hours ago
Figure targets Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in mortgage push, citing massive cost cuts for borrowers
15 hours ago
Coinbase cuts 14% of staff as AI reshapes how crypto companies operate
21 hours ago