BITCOIN HOURLY ON-CHAIN ACTIVITY
When in the day does Bitcoin actually move?
Every hour of the UTC day, by how much Bitcoin left its owners' hands and how often. Weekends included, because Bitcoin never closes.
How much Bitcoin moved in each hour of the UTC day, every year added up
How much Bitcoin moved in each hour of the UTC day, every year added up, counted to block 970,330. 00:00 to 01:00 UTC, 28.5M BTC, 3.6% of all value moved. 01:00 to 02:00 UTC, 31.6M BTC, 4.0% of all value moved. 02:00 to 03:00 UTC, 31.9M BTC, 4.0% of all value moved. 03:00 to 04:00 UTC, 29.2M BTC, 3.7% of all value moved. 04:00 to 05:00 UTC, 28.3M BTC, 3.6% of all value moved. 05:00 to 06:00 UTC, 27.4M BTC, 3.5% of all value moved. 06:00 to 07:00 UTC, 29.7M BTC, 3.8% of all value moved. 07:00 to 08:00 UTC, 31.8M BTC, 4.0% of all value moved. 08:00 to 09:00 UTC, 33.5M BTC, 4.2% of all value moved. 09:00 to 10:00 UTC, 33.3M BTC, 4.2% of all value moved. 10:00 to 11:00 UTC, 33.2M BTC, 4.2% of all value moved. 11:00 to 12:00 UTC, 32.9M BTC, 4.2% of all value moved. 12:00 to 13:00 UTC, 34.2M BTC, 4.3% of all value moved. 13:00 to 14:00 UTC, 37.3M BTC, 4.7% of all value moved. 14:00 to 15:00 UTC, 38.6M BTC, 4.9% of all value moved. 15:00 to 16:00 UTC, 39.2M BTC, 4.9% of all value moved. 16:00 to 17:00 UTC, 40.8M BTC, 5.2% of all value moved. 17:00 to 18:00 UTC, 39.6M BTC, 5.0% of all value moved. 18:00 to 19:00 UTC, 34.9M BTC, 4.4% of all value moved. 19:00 to 20:00 UTC, 33.6M BTC, 4.2% of all value moved. 20:00 to 21:00 UTC, 32.9M BTC, 4.2% of all value moved. 21:00 to 22:00 UTC, 31.5M BTC, 4.0% of all value moved. 22:00 to 23:00 UTC, 30.5M BTC, 3.9% of all value moved. 23:00 to 00:00 UTC, 27.0M BTC, 3.4% of all value moved.
Point to an hour or tap one to read it. On the chart, the left and right arrow keys move through the hours of the UTC day, Home and End jump to the first and the last, and Escape returns to the busiest hour.
Each bar adds up the Bitcoin that left its owners' hands in blocks stamped with that hour of the UTC day, from the first block to block 970,330, and its height is that hour's share of all of it. A coin can move many times, so the amounts run far past the 21 million that will ever exist. Block times can run up to two hours ahead of real time, which softens the curve without moving the peak.
Inspect an hour of the UTC day
Step through the 24 hours one at a time, from 00:00 to 24:00 UTC. The chart and its legend follow.
When does most Bitcoin move?
The day has two different peaks: 16:00 to 17:00 UTC by value, 15:00 to 16:00 UTC by movements.
The most Bitcoin moves in the hour from 16:00 to 17:00 UTC: 5.2% of all the value this page counts. The most separate movements happen in the hour from 15:00 to 16:00 UTC: 4.6% of all the movements counted. One hour is where the most coins go, the other is where the most movements happen, and they are not the same hour.
Counted across every block from the first one in 2009 up to block 970,330, 520.2M separate movements in all. All times are UTC, and UTC never shifts for daylight saving, so these hours mean the same thing all year. Busy is not good and quiet is not bad. This page says when Bitcoin moves, not whether it should.
How lopsided is the day?
The busiest hour, from 16:00 to 17:00 UTC, carries 5.2% of all the value this page counts, and the quietest, from 23:00 to 00:00 UTC, carries 3.4%. If every hour carried the same, each would hold 4.2%.
5.2%
busiest hour, 16:00 to 17:00 UTC
Share of all the value this page counts that lands in this one hour of the clock.
3.4%
quietest hour, 23:00 to 00:00 UTC
The same share of all the value this page counts, at the other end of the day.
29.1%
busiest six hours, 13:00 to 19:00 UTC
Share of all the value this page counts, in these six hours together. They are a quarter of the clock, so a perfectly even day would put 25% here.
Does counting movements change the answer?
Yes. Counted by value, the busiest hour is from 16:00 to 17:00 UTC. Counted by number of movements, it is from 15:00 to 16:00 UTC.
16:00to 17:00 UTC
busiest by value
The hour with the most Bitcoin leaving owners' hands.
15:00to 16:00 UTC
busiest by number of movements
The hour with the most separate movements, whatever they were worth.
4.6%
of all movements, in that hour
One hour can carry a small number of very large movements, so the two measures can disagree.
The two ways of counting point at different hours, though only just: by number of movements, the hour from 16:00 to 17:00 UTC also rounds to 4.6% of all movements. That is why this page shows both and never blends them into one number.
Do weekends look different?
Weekends carry 20.2% of all the value this page counts. Two days out of seven is 28.6%, so Saturday and Sunday are quieter than their share of the week. Counted by number of movements instead, weekends carry 27.1% of all the movements.
Bitcoin never closes, so nothing shuts on a Saturday. Any gap here comes from the habits of the people and companies moving coins, not from the network. Each day here is a UTC day, from 00:00 to 24:00 UTC.
What does this mean for you?
The shape of the day is real, but it is a shape in Bitcoin's own ledger, not in the price. A busy hour means a lot of coins changed owners in that hour. It does not mean the price did anything, and nothing on this page tells you when to buy or sell.
Where it helps is expectations. Every movement here is an owner sending coins in a transaction, and transactions compete for room in each block, so the hour with the most movements, from 15:00 to 16:00 UTC, is the hour when the most of them have been competing. This page does not measure what they paid for that room. And if an hour that has always been calm starts running loud, that is a change in behaviour worth noticing, even though this page will not tell you whose.
What to watch from here
- The busiest hour by value is from 16:00 to 17:00 UTC and the quietest from 23:00 to 00:00 UTC. Every block since 2009 is added up here, so a change in today's habits takes a long time to move either one.
- The busiest hour carries 1.5 times the value of the quietest one. If that gap keeps shrinking, Bitcoin's day is flattening out.
- Weekends carry 20.2% of all the value this page counts, where two days out of seven would be 28.6%. If that climbs, Bitcoin's week is looking less like an office week.
Understanding
Bitcoin Hourly On-Chain Activity
Where it stands today
More Bitcoin moves in the hour from 16:00 to 17:00 UTC than in any other hour of the UTC day as of .
What does this page count?
Coins moving on Bitcoin's own ledger, sorted by the hour of the UTC day they moved. It is not exchange trading and it is not price movement. A busy hour here means a lot of Bitcoin changed owners in that hour, and it says nothing at all about what the price was doing at the time.
What is one movement?
We read every transaction ever made on our own copy of the chain, and we count one movement each time a single owner sends coins to someone else in a single transaction. A transaction where three separate owners each spent counts as three movements, and one owner paying five people at once counts as one. That is why this page says movements and never says transactions, and why the number here will not match a transaction count from anywhere else. An owner is a group of addresses the chain's own evidence ties together, not a person: one person can show up as several owners, and an exchange sending coins on for its customers counts as an owner like any other.
Why are freshly mined coins missing?
Every hour also brings brand new Bitcoin out of mining, at a pace the network deliberately holds steady. Those coins have no previous owner to leave, and because they arrive at a fixed rate all day and all night they would flatten the very shape this page exists to show. So the count here is coins leaving owners' hands, and nothing else.
How exact is the clock?
Each movement is stamped with the time written into the block that carried it, and Bitcoin's rules let a miner set that stamp up to two hours ahead of the real time. Against a shape spread across a whole 24 hours, that softens the curve slightly without moving where the peak sits. Times are UTC throughout, and UTC never changes for daylight saving, so an hour on this page means the same thing in January and in July.
Why does this page not name regions?
It is tempting to read a busy hour as one part of the world waking up or another opening for business, and we do not do it. A wallet moving coins in the hour from 03:00 to 04:00 UTC could belong to someone up in the small hours, someone at lunch on the other side of the world, or a program running to a schedule with no human anywhere near it. Working days around the world also overlap in UTC rather than cutting the day into neat pieces, so any split into regions would be a guess dressed up as arithmetic. We publish the hours and leave the guessing alone.
The numbers
behind the chart
How much moved in each hour of the UTC day?
| Hour, UTC | Value moved | Share of all value moved | Times coins moved | Share of all movements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 to 01:00 UTC | 28.5M BTC | 3.6% | 19.6M | 3.8% |
| 01:00 to 02:00 UTC | 31.6M BTC | 4.0% | 20.1M | 3.9% |
| 02:00 to 03:00 UTC | 31.9M BTC | 4.0% | 19.9M | 3.8% |
| 03:00 to 04:00 UTC | 29.2M BTC | 3.7% | 19.9M | 3.8% |
| 04:00 to 05:00 UTC | 28.3M BTC | 3.6% | 19.7M | 3.8% |
| 05:00 to 06:00 UTC | 27.4M BTC | 3.5% | 20.1M | 3.9% |
| 06:00 to 07:00 UTC | 29.7M BTC | 3.8% | 20.5M | 3.9% |
| 07:00 to 08:00 UTC | 31.8M BTC | 4.0% | 21.1M | 4.0% |
| 08:00 to 09:00 UTC | 33.5M BTC | 4.2% | 21.6M | 4.1% |
| 09:00 to 10:00 UTC | 33.3M BTC | 4.2% | 21.8M | 4.2% |
| 10:00 to 11:00 UTC | 33.2M BTC | 4.2% | 21.6M | 4.2% |
| 11:00 to 12:00 UTC | 32.9M BTC | 4.2% | 22.6M | 4.3% |
| 12:00 to 13:00 UTC | 34.2M BTC | 4.3% | 22.5M | 4.3% |
| 13:00 to 14:00 UTC | 37.3M BTC | 4.7% | 21.9M | 4.2% |
| 14:00 to 15:00 UTC | 38.6M BTC | 4.9% | 23.5M | 4.5% |
| 15:00 to 16:00 UTC | 39.2M BTC | 4.9% | 24.2M | 4.6% |
| 16:00 to 17:00 UTC | 40.8M BTC | 5.2% | 23.9M | 4.6% |
| 17:00 to 18:00 UTC | 39.6M BTC | 5.0% | 23.9M | 4.6% |
| 18:00 to 19:00 UTC | 34.9M BTC | 4.4% | 23.0M | 4.4% |
| 19:00 to 20:00 UTC | 33.6M BTC | 4.2% | 23.1M | 4.4% |
| 20:00 to 21:00 UTC | 32.9M BTC | 4.2% | 21.9M | 4.2% |
| 21:00 to 22:00 UTC | 31.5M BTC | 4.0% | 22.1M | 4.2% |
| 22:00 to 23:00 UTC | 30.5M BTC | 3.9% | 21.0M | 4.0% |
| 23:00 to 00:00 UTC | 27.0M BTC | 3.4% | 20.6M | 4.0% |
How do weekdays and weekends split?
| Days, UTC | Value moved | Share of all value moved | Times coins moved | Share of all movements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday to Friday | 631.3M BTC | 79.8% | 379.5M | 72.9% |
| Saturday and Sunday | 160.1M BTC | 20.2% | 140.7M | 27.1% |
What is included in this reading?
Every block from the first one in 2009 up to block 970,330, every year added up: 791.5M BTC sent from one owner to another in 520.2M separate movements. The reading is dated 5 Oct 2026, and the count runs to block 970,330, so it can include blocks from after that day.
Each share is of its own measure's whole. An hour's share of value is the Bitcoin moved in that hour over all 791.5M BTC moved in all 24 hours, and its share of movements is its movements over all 520.2M. Weekdays and weekends split the same two wholes by UTC day.
Freshly mined coins are not in it, because they have no previous owner to leave. Exchanges and other businesses are owners here too, so coins they send on for their customers are counted.
Source: Maketo's count of Bitcoin moving between owners on its own ledger, hour by hour of the UTC day, every block added up. Reading for .