Hayloo’s Beta Desk. Beta is one number: when Bitcoin moves one percent, how far does the other coin move? Above one, the coin amplifies Bitcoin. Below one, it damps Bitcoin’s moves. The desk splits that number by direction, measuring what a coin catches on Bitcoin’s up-days against what it hands back on the down-days. Hand back more than you catch and your portfolio is paying Hayloo’s altcoin tax.
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Ether has spent this year as the dependable amplifier. Bitcoin moves, Ether moves further, and the holder gets paid for carrying the extra swing. That trade is thinning from the top down. Of every dollar Bitcoin gained this week, Ether caught 137 cents, off a peak of 205 in August. Of every dollar Bitcoin lost it handed back 99, down from 124 over the same stretch. Both sides came in. But what matters to us is this: The side that pays JohnDoe.eth came in nearly three times as far.
The beta itself now reads 1.28 against a cut at 1.24, four hundredths from the point where Hayloo’s Beta Desk stops calling Ether a leader and starts calling it a laggard. Four hundredths is less ground than Ether covers in a quiet week, so the label can change without the relationship underneath it changing at all. What has already changed is the shape of the payout, and that is the number we are trading off.
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The Cross-Section
XRP reads 1.52 and Ether 1.28, both above parity, so both still travel further than Bitcoin in either direction. Solana at 1.08 barely clears it. The altcoin basket without Bitcoin, Ether, and stables (TOTAL3ES) reads 0.84, which we read as a maturing process from the “Everything Blockchain Buy My Token Trust Me Bro”-bubble to projects actually solving problems and making dough with blockchain tech, which is what Hayloo’s portfolio is structured for.
Ether Has Held This Tag Fifteen Times Longer Than It Usually Does
When we backtested Ether, its history showed only two states: Trailing and Outperform. It has spent 78.0% of its recorded life trailing Bitcoin and 22.0% leading. It is sixty-nine days into the leading state against a median run of four and a half days. The reading itself is ordinary for Ethereum. The duration is not.
All three measurement windows still agree on the tag, at 1.30 over thirty days, 1.28 over sixty, and 1.28 over a hundred and twenty, so nothing inside the measurement disagrees about where Ether sits today.
XRP’s Edge Has a Maturity Date
Of every dollar Bitcoin gained, XRP caught 180 cents. Of every dollar Bitcoin lost, it handed back 105. That is 1.7 times more upside than downside and eighty-seven straight days on the favorable side, the longest run on the board.
Eighteen of those 180 cents belong to two sessions. On August 20 and 21 Bitcoin ran 5% and 7% while XRP ran 13% and 14%. Take either day out of the window and up-capture falls from 180 cents to roughly 162.
XRP’S edge over Bitcoin is already closing. It peaked at 1.15 on August 27 and reads 0.75 twelve sessions later. This week both sides moved toward each other, with down-capture rising from 93 cents to 105 and up-capture easing from 187 to 180. The beta itself did not move at all, 1.5164 to 1.5156, so nothing changed in how far XRP travels with Bitcoin. What changed is who gets paid for the travelling.
Solana Is Failing on Bitcoin’s Up-Days
Of every dollar Bitcoin gained, Solana caught 86 cents. Of every dollar Bitcoin lost, it handed back 111. That is 1.3 times more downside for Solana over Bitcoin’s upside, and it has held on that side for twelve days.
Which side moved is the whole story. Up-capture fell from 97 cents to 86 across the week and more than half of that landed in a single session, September 3, when Bitcoin ran 5.0% and Solana took 69 cents of it. Talking about a top-signal. We sold SOL spot two weeks ago, closed the long hedge, and doubled the short. This week’s reading does not argue with that position and does not yet prove it.
The TOTAL3ES Basket Is Thirty-Five Days on the Wrong Side
Of every dollar Bitcoin gained, the basket caught 79 cents. Of every dollar Bitcoin lost, it handed back 95. That is 1.2 times more altcoin downside than upside, and thirty-five straight days of it.
What’s Solid, What’s Soft
Solid. The three single-coin betas are the tightest numbers on the board, Solana and XRP sit well clear of their cuts, and the direction of Ether’s beta is confirmed; it has fallen at each of the last three weekly marks.
Soft. Ether’s tag sits inside a single week’s normal movement of its cut, so the label can change while nothing underneath it does.
Horizon. These relationships are moving fast enough that any read beyond about three weeks is on shaky ground. Every figure above measures the window it names and claims nothing about what comes next.
The Altcoin Tax
Five obsessives behind a spreadsheet have worked out, to four decimal places, exactly how much your favorite altcoin ETF fleeces you every time Bitcoin clears its throat. They will not — under any ci…
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Very interesting analysis of the beta of ETH (and other coins) vs BTC.
I wrote about Ethereum here in more of a “what is it” sort of way.
https://rudajev.substack.com/p/episode-39-is-ethereum-the-spacex