Neo volatility and risk: how violent it has been
3,281 daily moves since 20 Nov 2017. On a typical day NEO moves 2.6% in one direction or the other; on 1 day in 20 it has lost more than 8.5%, and its deepest fall from a record close was −99%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Mar 2020 | −39.5% | $5.71 | +13.4% | +28.0% |
| 19 May 2021 | −36.9% | $55.12 | +13.4% | −17.6% |
| 21 Jun 2021 | −28.3% | $32.05 | +3.5% | −12.9% |
| 10 Oct 2025 | −28.0% | $4.38 | +14.3% | +23.9% |
| 16 Jan 2018 | −27.4% | $137.5 | −10.7% | −12.0% |
| 11 May 2022 | −23.6% | $10.56 | −6.3% | +8.0% |
| 5 Feb 2018 | −23.3% | $82.14 | +36.2% | +21.9% |
| 22 Dec 2017 | −21.7% | $55.37 | +32.1% | +139.5% |
| 7 Sep 2021 | −21.7% | $49.84 | +4.0% | −7.5% |
| 5 Sep 2018 | −20.2% | $19.30 | −8.5% | −5.7% |
After these 10 falls, NEO was higher a week later in 7 of 10 cases and higher 30 days later in 5 of 10. 10 hand-picked extremes are an anecdote, not a test. The full count is on the 10% drop in a day study: 72 scored cases, verdict “no better than chance”.
The 10 largest one-day gains, and what followed
| Day | Move | Close | 7 days later | 30 days later |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Dec 2024 | +44.6% | $26.09 | −35.3% | −44.0% |
| 8 Apr 2024 | +41.1% | $21.72 | −6.6% | −29.9% |
| 20 Feb 2023 | +40.8% | $14.67 | −9.9% | −20.8% |
| 17 Dec 2017 | +36.8% | $67.19 | −13.2% | +104.7% |
| 20 May 2021 | +30.1% | $71.71 | −12.2% | −38.0% |
| 17 Aug 2018 | +29.2% | $20.67 | −14.3% | −13.1% |
| 18 Apr 2021 | +27.5% | $119.8 | −33.6% | −27.1% |
| 27 Oct 2019 | +26.1% | $11.50 | −3.9% | −19.4% |
| 6 Feb 2018 | +26.1% | $103.5 | +4.8% | −12.7% |
| 24 May 2021 | +25.4% | $54.04 | +3.4% | −38.1% |
After these 10 gains, NEO was higher a week later in 2 of 10 cases and higher 30 days later in 1 of 10. The full count is on the 10% jump in a day study: 79 scored cases, verdict “weak evidence”.
Moves are from one daily close to the next (00:00 UTC), Binance spot. “Open” means that many days have not passed yet.
Neo and Bitcoin
Over the last 365 days NEO has moved closely with Bitcoin: the correlation of their daily moves is 0.74, where 1 means in step and 0 means unrelated. For each 1% Bitcoin moved in a day, NEO moved about 1.04% on average.
| Period | Days | Correlation | Move per 1% of Bitcoin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last 90 days | 90 | 0.74 | 1.22% |
| Last 365 days | 365 | 0.74 | 1.04% |
| All shared history | 3,281 | 0.67 | 1.09% |
Daily close-to-close moves on the 3,281 days both pairs traded. What NEO did in the week after a Bitcoin shock is tested separately: after Bitcoin drops 5% in a day.