Arbitrum volatility and risk: how violent it has been
1,332 daily moves since 23 Mar 2023. On a typical day ARB moves 2.6% in one direction or the other; on 1 day in 20 it has lost more than 7.5%, and its deepest fall from a record close was −97%.
Volatility is the standard deviation of daily log returns multiplied by the square root of 365, the usual way to put it on a yearly scale. “1 in 20” and “1 in 100” are the 5th and 1st percentiles of all daily moves, read straight from the history with no model.
The 10 largest one-day falls, and what followed
| Day | Move | Close | 7 days later | 30 days later |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Oct 2025 | −29.1% | $0.2962 | +2.5% | +1.0% |
| 12 Apr 2024 | −17.2% | $1.17 | −4.6% | −15.0% |
| 9 Dec 2024 | −17.1% | $0.9598 | +4.5% | −18.0% |
| 5 Feb 2026 | −16.1% | $0.1077 | +3.7% | −10.1% |
| 30 May 2025 | −15.9% | $0.3334 | −0.5% | +10.1% |
| 3 Mar 2025 | −15.4% | $0.3918 | −18.2% | −21.6% |
| 3 Nov 2025 | −15.1% | $0.2612 | +17.5% | −14.8% |
| 5 Aug 2024 | −14.7% | $0.4818 | +22.3% | +3.2% |
| 2 Feb 2025 | −14.6% | $0.4936 | −9.0% | −23.1% |
| 24 Feb 2025 | −14.0% | $0.4111 | −4.7% | −7.1% |
After these 10 falls, ARB was higher a week later in 5 of 10 cases and higher 30 days later in 3 of 10. 10 hand-picked extremes are an anecdote, not a test. The full count is on the 10% drop in a day study: 22 scored cases, verdict “weak evidence”.
The 10 largest one-day gains, and what followed
| Day | Move | Close | 7 days later | 30 days later |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Sep 2026 | +34.3% | $0.1772 | −20.7% | +17.3% |
| 31 Aug 2026 | +29.8% | $0.1094 | +54.8% | +85.5% |
| 10 May 2025 | +27.9% | $0.4842 | −22.4% | −23.8% |
| 18 Sep 2026 | +24.8% | $0.2212 | +2.5% | −15.5% |
| 14 Apr 2023 | +24.1% | $1.70 | −13.3% | −31.1% |
| 22 Dec 2023 | +22.5% | $1.42 | +6.4% | +28.0% |
| 10 Jan 2024 | +20.8% | $2.23 | −8.5% | −11.1% |
| 13 Aug 2025 | +19.6% | $0.5712 | −10.1% | −4.1% |
| 16 Nov 2024 | +19.6% | $0.7251 | +18.0% | +38.3% |
| 19 Aug 2026 | +18.9% | $0.08950 | +3.7% | +147.2% |
After these 10 gains, ARB was higher a week later in 5 of 10 cases and higher 30 days later in 5 of 10. The full count is on the 10% jump in a day study: 31 scored cases, verdict “no better than chance”.
Moves are from one daily close to the next (00:00 UTC), Binance spot. “Open” means that many days have not passed yet.
Arbitrum and Bitcoin
Over the last 365 days ARB has moved loosely with Bitcoin: the correlation of their daily moves is 0.59, where 1 means in step and 0 means unrelated. For each 1% Bitcoin moved in a day, ARB moved about 1.32% on average.
| Period | Days | Correlation | Move per 1% of Bitcoin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last 90 days | 90 | 0.50 | 1.69% |
| Last 365 days | 365 | 0.59 | 1.32% |
| All shared history | 1,332 | 0.60 | 1.30% |
Daily close-to-close moves on the 1,332 days both pairs traded. What ARB did in the week after a Bitcoin shock is tested separately: after Bitcoin drops 5% in a day.