Does 5-Minute RV Outperform Other Realized Measures in the Bitcoin Market?

Abstract

After the seminal work of Liu et al. (2015) finds that the realized volatility (RV) using 5-minute intervals performs well, economists tend to use this simple measure in applications. Existing literature in the cryptocurrency already relies on 5-minute RV, but no paper has evaluated whether 5-minute RV performs well compared with other realized measures. Following Liu et al. (2015), we show that the 5-minute RV of Bitcoin performs well compared to other realized measures, meaning that this result justifies the existing literature that already uses this simple measure. This paper also indicates that realized measures with longer intervals such as 120-minute RV could provide inaccurate estimates.