An Analysis of the Change in Discussions on Social Media with Bitcoin Price

Abstract

We develop a new approach to temporalizing word2vec-based topic modelling that determines which topics on social media vary with shifts in the phases of a time series to understand potential interactions. This is particularly relevant for the highly volatile bitcoin price with its distinct four phases across 2017-18. We statistically test which words change in frequency between the different stages and compare four word2vec models to assess their consistency in relating connected words in weighted, undirected graphs. For words that fall in frequency when prices shift from rising to falling, all eight topics are identified with the four approaches; for words rising in frequency, three out of the five topics remain constant. These topics are intuitive and match with actual events in the news.