Cryptocurrency Momentum: Is It an Illusion?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent literature explores the profitability of various cryptocurrency momentum trading strategies and proposes cryptocurrency momentum as a pricing factor (Liu et al.). How risky is this factor‐based investment strategy for crypto‐investments? We answer this question by examining the distributional characteristics (hence, riskiness) of six cryptocurrency momentum trading strategies. The empirical evidence suggests that the realised variances of cryptocurrency momentum strategies are governed by power laws. The statistical tests derived from block bootstraps indicate that the population mean and variance of the momentum factor realised variances are statistically not defined. Contrary to the belief that cryptocurrency momentum trading strategies produce generous payoffs, our results imply that, in real life, we might not be able to realise these risk premiums. We conclude that the performance metrics evaluating the profitability of cryptocurrency momentum strategies, using variance as an input, are not informative. We also find cross‐sectional dependence amongst the tail risk of momentum strategies based on different formation periods.