Stellar volatility and risk: how violent it has been
3,089 daily moves since 31 May 2018. On a typical day XLM moves 2.2% in one direction or the other; on 1 day in 20 it has lost more than 6.8%, and its deepest fall from a record close was −90%.
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 | −37.0% | $0.03174 | +30.2% | +56.7% |
| 19 May 2021 | −31.3% | $0.4432 | +0.1% | −32.9% |
| 23 Dec 2020 | −21.9% | $0.1266 | +4.1% | +112.8% |
| 7 Sep 2021 | −20.8% | $0.3358 | −1.3% | +2.3% |
| 21 Jun 2021 | −20.7% | $0.2358 | +11.7% | −3.2% |
| 12 May 2021 | −18.9% | $0.5955 | −25.6% | −46.6% |
| 24 Sep 2019 | −17.1% | $0.05275 | +11.1% | +14.0% |
| 9 Dec 2024 | −16.8% | $0.4103 | +2.0% | +3.7% |
| 3 Mar 2025 | −16.7% | $0.2925 | −17.3% | −11.8% |
| 23 Feb 2021 | −16.6% | $0.3865 | +8.3% | −6.6% |
After these 10 falls, XLM 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: 44 scored cases, verdict “strong evidence”.
The 10 largest one-day gains, and what followed
| Day | Move | Close | 7 days later | 30 days later |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Jan 2021 | +75.9% | $0.3394 | −10.6% | +3.6% |
| 13 Jul 2023 | +61.5% | $0.1552 | +5.2% | −11.1% |
| 23 Nov 2024 | +53.5% | $0.5218 | +0.6% | −28.9% |
| 16 Nov 2024 | +51.5% | $0.2207 | +136.4% | +89.7% |
| 24 Nov 2020 | +47.9% | $0.1957 | −6.1% | −19.2% |
| 18 Sep 2019 | +30.1% | $0.08257 | −30.6% | −23.7% |
| 22 Nov 2024 | +29.5% | $0.3399 | +61.2% | +4.9% |
| 1 Jan 2025 | +28.0% | $0.4258 | −0.1% | −2.7% |
| 29 May 2026 | +27.4% | $0.2596 | −21.7% | −33.4% |
| 23 Nov 2020 | +26.9% | $0.1323 | +53.4% | −4.3% |
After these 10 gains, XLM was higher a week later in 5 of 10 cases and higher 30 days later in 3 of 10. The full count is on the 10% jump in a day study: 54 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.
Stellar and Bitcoin
Over the last 365 days XLM has moved loosely with Bitcoin: the correlation of their daily moves is 0.60, where 1 means in step and 0 means unrelated. For each 1% Bitcoin moved in a day, XLM moved about 1.05% on average.
| Period | Days | Correlation | Move per 1% of Bitcoin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last 90 days | 90 | 0.76 | 1.26% |
| Last 365 days | 365 | 0.60 | 1.05% |
| All shared history | 3,089 | 0.60 | 0.99% |
Daily close-to-close moves on the 3,089 days both pairs traded. What XLM did in the week after a Bitcoin shock is tested separately: after Bitcoin drops 5% in a day.