THORChain volatility and risk: how violent it has been
2,262 daily moves since 4 Sep 2020. On a typical day RUNE moves 3.3% in one direction or the other; on 1 day in 20 it has lost more than 9.5%, and its deepest fall from a record close was −98%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Feb 2025 | −45.1% | $1.17 | +6.0% | +9.3% |
| 19 May 2021 | −43.1% | $11.58 | +10.0% | −29.6% |
| 24 Jan 2025 | −30.8% | $2.10 | +1.2% | −33.0% |
| 21 Jun 2021 | −28.5% | $5.97 | +5.9% | −28.0% |
| 11 May 2022 | −28.4% | $3.15 | −5.9% | −16.6% |
| 10 Oct 2025 | −25.5% | $0.8630 | −2.9% | −4.5% |
| 9 Nov 2022 | −24.3% | $1.03 | +15.9% | +33.7% |
| 21 May 2021 | −23.6% | $10.39 | +3.8% | −19.6% |
| 28 May 2021 | −23.3% | $10.79 | +6.8% | −43.5% |
| 5 Sep 2020 | −22.1% | $0.6371 | +25.5% | −35.4% |
After these 10 falls, RUNE was higher a week later in 8 of 10 cases and higher 30 days later in 2 of 10. 10 hand-picked extremes are an anecdote, not a test. The full count is on the 10% drop in a day study: 61 scored cases, verdict “weak evidence”.
The 10 largest one-day gains, and what followed
| Day | Move | Close | 7 days later | 30 days later |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Jan 2021 | +40.0% | $1.81 | +11.5% | +137.6% |
| 1 Mar 2022 | +37.9% | $5.52 | −25.9% | +107.9% |
| 9 Mar 2022 | +34.0% | $5.48 | +40.1% | +57.9% |
| 7 Mar 2024 | +31.9% | $6.97 | +47.5% | +8.3% |
| 24 May 2021 | +31.3% | $10.20 | +23.8% | −45.1% |
| 25 Jan 2025 | +29.5% | $2.72 | −57.1% | −49.9% |
| 22 Jan 2021 | +29.5% | $2.13 | +70.4% | +124.0% |
| 20 Mar 2024 | +26.7% | $9.38 | −5.1% | −42.6% |
| 28 Jan 2021 | +24.8% | $3.16 | +23.3% | +43.0% |
| 13 Nov 2020 | +24.4% | $0.7141 | +30.4% | +25.9% |
After these 10 gains, RUNE was higher a week later in 7 of 10 cases and higher 30 days later in 7 of 10. The full count is on the 10% jump in a day study: 88 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.
THORChain and Bitcoin
Over the last 365 days RUNE has moved closely with Bitcoin: the correlation of their daily moves is 0.67, where 1 means in step and 0 means unrelated. For each 1% Bitcoin moved in a day, RUNE moved about 1.08% on average.
| Period | Days | Correlation | Move per 1% of Bitcoin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last 90 days | 90 | 0.59 | 1.15% |
| Last 365 days | 365 | 0.67 | 1.08% |
| All shared history | 2,262 | 0.62 | 1.41% |
Daily close-to-close moves on the 2,262 days both pairs traded. What RUNE did in the week after a Bitcoin shock is tested separately: after Bitcoin drops 5% in a day.