Modeling the Asymmetric and Time-Dependent Volatility of Bitcoin: An Alternative Approach

Abstract

Volatility as a measure of financial risk is a crucial input for hedging, portfolio diversification, option pricing and the calculation of the value at risk. In this paper, we estimate the asymmetric and time-varying volatility for Bitcoin as the dominant cryptocurrency in the world market. A novel approach that explicitly separates the falling markets from the rising ones is utilized for this purpose. The empirical results have important implications for investors and financial institutions. Our approach provides a position-dependent measure of risk for Bitcoin. This is essential since the source of risk for an investor with a long position is the falling prices, while the source of risk for an investor with a short position is the rising prices. Thus, providing a separate risk measure in each case is expected to increase the efficiency of the underlying risk management in both cases compared to the existing methods in the literature.