--- title: "Altcoin beta to Bitcoin: BTC, ETH, SOL and DOGE hourly returns" language: en type: empirical canonical: "https://whycoinmoves.com/en/research/hourly-returns-and-bitcoin-beta" published: 2026-10-20 reviewed: 2026-10-20 --- # Altcoin beta to Bitcoin: BTC, ETH, SOL and DOGE hourly returns Compare hourly returns, volatility and Bitcoin beta for BTC, ETH, SOL and DOGE using OKX spot data, with sample counts and a separate live baseline. WhyCoinMoves Research · 2026-10-20 Observation / evidence scope: 2025-10-01T00:00:00Z/2026-09-24T06:00:00Z ## Historical OKX spot / USDT sample; absolute close-to-close hourly returns | Asset | Closed bars / expected | Valid returns N | Median \|r\| (%) | P99 \|r\| (%) | BTC beta | Matched returns N | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | BTC | 8596 / 8598 | 8593 | 0.2004 | 1.7751 | 1.0000 | 8593 | | ETH | 8596 / 8598 | 8593 | 0.2588 | 2.4855 | 1.2168 | 8593 | | SOL | 8595 / 8598 | 8591 | 0.3129 | 2.6685 | 1.2706 | 8591 | | DOGE | 8595 / 8598 | 8591 | 0.3164 | 2.8403 | 1.2473 | 8591 | ## What the sample shows The median absolute hourly return is 0.2004% for BTC and 0.3164% for DOGE. The corresponding P99 values are 1.7751% and 2.8403%. A fixed percentage move therefore occupies a different place in each asset’s empirical distribution. That supports reporting an asset-specific baseline alongside an alert; it does not establish an optimal alert setting. The gap between central and tail observations is large. P99 is an empirical order statistic, not a guaranteed future loss boundary. These figures alone are not a formal test against a normal distribution, and no false-positive rate is estimated because there is no independently labelled set of abnormal events. ## Sample construction and missing hours We recalculated public-market candle data held in an existing research archive. The common observation window is 1 October 2025 00:00 UTC to 24 September 2026 06:00 UTC, with 8,598 possible hourly candles per asset. Only confirmed, closed candles enter the sample. Timestamps, duplicate keys, finite positive prices and OHLC consistency were checked. The local archive ends before the initially considered October cutoff, so the published period stops at the shared available endpoint. Returns are 100 × (current close / previous close − 1), and only exactly adjacent hourly closes are paired. Gaps are neither forward-filled nor treated as zero returns. Quantiles use the sorted absolute returns at index floor((N − 1) × p), without interpolation. The table gives the remaining return count as well as candle coverage. ## How to read Bitcoin beta Beta is covariance(asset return, BTC return) divided by variance(BTC return), using signed returns at matching timestamps on the same venue and in the same quote currency. ETH, SOL and DOGE have sample betas above one here. This is a historical linear association; it does not mean every BTC move is multiplied by that number, or that the remaining return is caused by a coin-specific news event. A beta calculated from a broad historical window can differ from the live rolling baseline below. Market composition, volatility and the sample period change. Hourly estimates also cannot be transferred directly to a minute-level move. Mixing USD and USDT series would add a quote-currency effect to the comparison. ## What this changes when reading a price alert A useful alert separates the measured move, its historical context and the explanation being proposed. Robust summaries can reduce the influence of isolated outliers, but they do not identify a cause. The live table is descriptive context from the site’s current coverage; it is a separate dataset, not an extension of this fixed historical sample. ## What is altcoin beta to Bitcoin? Bitcoin beta describes how an asset’s returns co-move with BTC in a specified historical sample. It differs from correlation and from the asset’s own volatility. It is not a fixed multiplier for every future BTC move. ## Do altcoins have the same hourly volatility as Bitcoin? Not in this four-asset sample: median and tail absolute hourly returns differ across BTC, ETH, SOL and DOGE. The comparison covers selected surviving assets on OKX spot, not every altcoin or trading venue. ## Limitations Four selected surviving assets on one spot venue are not a representative sample of all crypto assets. Missing hours remain excluded. There is no regime-stability test, causal identification, profitability backtest or out-of-sample validation in this article. ## Sources and data access - [OKX market data documentation]() Aggregate data only; raw archives are not redistributed. Source fingerprints identify the files used, not independent verification. [JSON]() ## Related live archives - [BTC]() - [ETH]() - [SOL]() - [DOGE]() - [Market watch]() ## Live prior 30-day hourly baseline — separate from the historical study Only the current watch list is shown, up to 12 assets. Missing or stale estimates remain unavailable. Venue and quote currency are kept separate; beta needs matching BTC data. Hourly statistics are not minute-move probabilities. Cutoff (UTC): 20/10/2026, 15:59 | Asset | Source | Bars / expected | Median \|r\| (%) | P99 \|r\| (%) | BTC Beta | Matched N | Last close (UTC+8) | Status | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | BTC | OKX · USDT | 720/720 | 0.1475 | 1.2330 | 1.0000 | 719 | 20/10/2026, 15:00 | Ready | | SOL | OKX · USDT | 720/720 | 0.2810 | 2.0501 | 1.4236 | 719 | 20/10/2026, 15:00 | Ready | | SUI | OKX · USDT | 720/720 | 0.5274 | 3.6976 | 2.0551 | 719 | 20/10/2026, 15:00 | Ready | | DOGE | OKX · USDT | 720/720 | 0.3218 | 2.2931 | 1.5570 | 719 | 20/10/2026, 15:00 | Ready | | ETH | OKX · USDT | 720/720 | 0.1935 | 1.4709 | 1.1299 | 719 | 20/10/2026, 15:00 | Ready | | XRP | OKX · USDT | 720/720 | 0.2671 | 2.3892 | 1.4426 | 719 | 20/10/2026, 15:00 | Ready | | PEARL | — | 0/720 | — | — | — | 0 | Not available | Unavailable: incomplete or stale | | AERO | — | 0/720 | — | — | — | 0 | Not available | Unavailable: incomplete or stale | | WLD | OKX · USDT | 481/720 | — | — | — | 480 | 20/10/2026, 15:00 | Unavailable: incomplete or stale | | NEAR | OKX · USDT | 720/720 | 0.7887 | 5.0974 | 2.2163 | 719 | 20/10/2026, 15:00 | Ready | | CARDS | OKX · USDT | 720/720 | 1.0433 | 8.7874 | 1.6019 | 719 | 20/10/2026, 15:00 | Ready | | QTC | — | 0/720 | — | — | — | 0 | Not available | Unavailable: incomplete or stale | [Research]() [Methods and limitations]()