Bitcoin Market Hours & the 3 Major Bitcoin Sessions

The online Bitcoin Crypto Currency trading market is a 24 hours Market: it opens on Sunday night (5 PM EST) and closes on Friday afternoon (4PM EST) - open 5 and a half days a week.

However, even though the Bitcoin market is open 24 hours a day, as a trader you need to realize that certain times of day are more suitable than others when it comes to trading BTCUSD Crypto in order to devise an effective and time efficient Bitcoin strategy.

To maximize the number of trading opportunities during these market hours, it's important to be aware of the times when the online trading market is busiest. This is the time that most financial transactions activity occurs.

Even though there is no official open & close time during the week, the market trading day can be broken up in to 3 major sessions - Tokyo, London and New York market sessions.

However, although it seems not to be very crucial at the start, the right time to trade is one of the most crucial points required to be a successful Bitcoin trader.

The best time to trade Bitcoin is when the market is most active and thence has the largest volume of financial transactions. A more active online market creates a good chance to make some profit while a calm and slow market is literally a waste of time - turn off your Desktop computer PC during this time and don't even bother trading BTCUSD at this time.

Not all the market times are suitable, that's because the volatility changes too much during the 24 hours market cycle. Below is a table outlining the schedule of the Trading Sessions. The time used is GMT 0.

BTCUSD Market Hours & the 3 Major BTCUSD Sessions

Online Financial Market Trading Hours - Best Bitcoin Hours

These are the busiest trading times when it comes to trading financial instruments because these are the times when the major financial institutions and major banks in these cities are open for business. Because of major financial transactions carried out by these major financial institutions the online trading markets also becomes very busy because of this huge turnover of trades.

As a btc/usd trader trading during this time is the best option because there is a lot of movement in the price of financial instruments.

The 3 major market trading sessions are:

Asian Session Hours (Tokyo): 00:00 - 9:00 GMT

European Session Hours (London): 7:00 - 17:00 GMT

U.S.A. Session Hours (New York): 13:00 - 22:00 GMT

Trading Sessions Overlaps - Best Trading Times

There are hours when 2 trading sessions are overlapped:

London + Tokyo overlap - 7:00 - 9:00 GMT New York + London overlap - 13:00 - 17:00 GMT

At these over-lapping market hours you'll find the highest volume of financial transactions and thence more chances to make winning trades during these hours.

For example, the BTCUSD pair would give good trading results between 13:00 - 17:00 GMT when two market sessions of Europe and USA are open.

This means that the lion share of financial transactions is happening between the London session and USA sessions. Naturally this is the best time to make profits trading the online bitcoin markets.

The BTCUSD Crypto Currency prices moves a lot during the New York and London Sessions because Multinational firms, hedge funds, managed funds and banks are open for transacting financial instruments such as Bitcoin cryptocurrency, currencies, precious metals and CFDs.

Multinationals will transact currencies during this time to facilitate international business transactions and commerce, hedge funds & managed funds will trade currencies, Bitcoin cryptocurrency, Oil and CFDs for investment purposes, banks on the other hand will exchange a lot of money on behalf of their clients, and also trade instruments such as currencies, BTCUSD Crypto Currency cryptocurrency, Oil and CFDs for investment purposes or for speculative purposes.

Banks also will transact currency transactions on behalf of tourists wanting to travel around the globe or just anybody wanting to exchange money so that to buy something in another country or make some international transaction.

This makes the online market very liquid at this time and the high volume of financial transactions means that BTCUSD prices move a lot. At this time the Bitcoin prices will generally move in particular direction and form a short-term trend.

As a trader you also want to join in and trade when everyone is placing their orders because this is the time there's enough liquidity and many good opportunities to make money trading Bitcoin, and because there is a lot of liquidity the market movement will generally be more predictable unlike when there is little liquidity & the price movement becomes unpredictable and the market prices can move in a range bound with no particular direction.

Once you trade Bitcoin for a while you will get to know that's easier to make money when the market is heading up or heading down when there is a trend, unlike when it is in a range sideways market. The market is likely to be trending during the busiest market times - which makes these times the best times for Bitcoin.

Asia Session Characteristics:

Least volatile of the 3 sessions
Account for 15 % of daily transaction turnover
Typical 20 -30 dollar moves

European Session Characteristics:

Most volatile of the 3 sessions
35 % of daily transaction volume
Typical 90 - 120 dollar moves

US Market Session Characteristics:

2nd most volatile of the three markets sessions
Accounts for 25 % of daily turnover
Focuses on USA economic news

US & Europe Session Overlaps Characteristics:

Combines the two most volatile trading sessions

Accounts for 60 % of total daily financial transactions turnover

Focuses on USA and European economic news

Fast moving Bitcoin prices and BTCUSD pair trends in a particular direction

Typical 100 - 150 dollar moves for BTCUSD Crypto pair

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