Scheduled Flows in Crypto: Three Gold-Fix Mechanisms, None Tradable at Retail Cost

Gold falls into its London fix because orders that must trade at a scheduled time move the price around that time. Crypto markets have their own scheduled obligations, and this note tests three of them on Bybit perpetual futures for bitcoin, ether and solana from 2020 to 2026. Funding payments every eight hours behave like an ex-dividend date: before settlement the price moves against the side that pays, by about half to two thirds of the payment (t = −3.6 across the three coins). The benchmark window used to value US spot bitcoin ETFs, 15:00–16:00 New York time, shows a dip into the window and a rebound after it since the ETFs launched in January 2024, and the rebound comes almost entirely on days of ETF outflows: +12 bp in the half hour after 16:00, t = 5.0, against −1 bp on inflow days. Deribit option expiries at 08:00 UTC on Fridays show the same dip and rebound, deepest before monthly expiries; across the three coins the half hour after expiry gains +8 bp (t = 4.3). All three mechanisms are real, and none pays: the moves are 1 to 12 bp, the round-trip taker cost is 11 bp, and the one conditional effect large enough to matter depends on ETF flows that are published only after the market has moved. AI disclosure. The author used Claude (Anthropic), an AI assistant, to write the data-analysis code, todraft and edit the text, to assist with wording and structure, and as a consultative tool for discussingmethodological and technical questions. The research questions and the decisions on what to test and whatto accept are the author’s. The author reviewed, verified, and edited all AI-assisted content and takes fullresponsibility for the content of the paper, including its analysis, results, and conclusions.