[DigitalToday reporter Jinju Hong (홍진주)] An analysis found that bitcoin (BTC) gains over the past three months were not evenly spread across the day but concentrated in specific trading hours and weekdays. Asia-Pacific and U.S. sessions led the uptrend, and Monday posted the highest return by day of the week.

CoinDesk reported on May 6 that bitcoin rebounded about 31 percent, rising to above $80,000 after a low below $63,000 on Feb. 6. The upward momentum during that period was concentrated in Asia-Pacific and U.S. trading hours.

Price data provider Velo split the trading day into three eight-hour blocks for analysis. The Asia-Pacific session runs from 00:00 to 08:00 UTC and includes the Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul and Sydney markets. The European session is 08:00 to 16:00, and the U.S. session is 16:00 to 00:00.

Over the past three months in that period, the Asia-Pacific session posted the highest return at 13 percent. The U.S. session followed at 11.5 percent, while the European session came in at 6.5 percent. The outlet assessed that Asia-Pacific and U.S. hours were effectively the key rising segments in the recent rebound.

Shifts in session-by-session trends were also identified. The U.S. session was flat or weak for most of February and March, but in April it shifted into a clear positive-return period. That suggests a pattern in which Asian markets led early in the rebound and U.S. markets later added support.

By specific time window, the strongest period was 00:00 to 01:00 UTC. The so-called "UTC midnight candle" recorded the best performance with an average return of 0.1 percent over the past three months. This hour overlaps late U.S. trading and early Asia trading, and was interpreted as a period of active price discovery as new liquidity flowed in.

The second-strongest hour was 15:00 UTC, while the weakest was 06:00 UTC. With clear differences by hour, the analysis said the findings could also serve as a reference for short-term traders on entry timing and risk-management strategies.

The day-of-week pattern was more pronounced. Based on the past three months, the average return on Monday was about 1.5 percent, far above other days. Wednesday recorded about 0.65 percent and Friday about 0.3 percent in modest positive moves.

The weakest day was Thursday. Thursday’s average return was about minus 0.55 percent. Overall, average weekday returns were about plus 0.4 percent, while the weekend average was about minus 0.25 percent, showing relatively weaker performance.

The data show that funds and liquidity in the recent rebound were concentrated in specific sessions and days of the week. With Monday and Asia and U.S. trading hours emerging as the center of the stronger trend, the analysis said market participants may need to look not only at price levels but also at when buying interest flows in.