Flight to Bitcoin (in)attention and herding in cryptocurrencies

Abstract

This paper first documents a novel herding for Altcoin, i.e., herding towards Bitcoin. Besides, constructing the proxies for flight to Bitcoin (in)attention with Google Trends and Twitter, the results reveal that flight to Bitcoin inattention strengthens the herding and flight to Bitcoin attention attenuates the herding. Subperiod analysis further reveals that the finding is more pronounced during the period before the introduction of Bitcoin futures, and the period before the outbreak of COVID-19.