PANews reported on February 18 that according to CoinDesk, since the end of November last year, the trading price of Bitcoin has been between $91,000 and $109,000, with a very narrow fluctuation range. In other words, the volatility of Bitcoin has been greatly reduced. According to data from Glassnode, the two-week actual volatility (a measure of the volatility of an asset in the past two weeks, calculated on an annualized basis) has dropped to 32%, one of the lowest levels in several years. In addition, the one-month volatility implied by options (the market's expectation of volatility in the next four weeks) has also fallen below the annualized level of 50%, which is also one of the lowest levels in several years.

To get a better idea of Bitcoin's sideways consolidation, refer to what analyst Checkmate calls the "Oscillator Index." The data shows that Bitcoin's volatility has reached its highest level since 2015 on a weekly time frame, which shows how narrow its trading range is. Volatility tends to have a mean-reverting nature, meaning that unusually stable markets often foreshadow large swings and vice versa. The longer the consolidation lasts and the narrower the range, the more violent the eventual volatility burst will be. In short, the most intense range-bound volatility since 2015 may soon pave the way for violent price fluctuations. Bitcoin will break out of this range sooner or later; the question is whether it will break out to the upside or the downside.