Forecasting Cryptocurrency Prices using Contextual ES-adRNN with Exogenous Variables

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a new approach to multivariate forecasting cryptocurrency prices using a hybrid contextual model combining exponential smoothing (ES) and recurrent neural network (RNN). The model consists of two tracks: the context track and the main track. The context track provides additional information to the main track, extracted from representative series. This information as well as information extracted from exogenous variables is dynamically adjusted to the individual series forecasted by the main track. The RNN stacked architecture with hierarchical dilations, incorporating recently developed attentive dilated recurrent cells, allows the model to capture short and long-term dependencies across time series and dynamically weight input information. The model generates both point daily forecasts and predictive intervals for one-day, one-week and four-week horizons. We apply our model to forecast prices of 15 cryptocurrencies based on 17 input variables and compare its performance with that of comparative models, including both statistical and ML ones.