Bitcoin Halvings and Institutional Investors: A Wavelet Analysis

Abstract

As a highly speculative asset, bitcoin’s (BTC) demand is particularly based on the perceptions of agents about the financial asset. Especially institutions that began leaving a bigger footprint in the market, causing changes in transaction flow and price cycles. To assess how halving dynamics changed the BTC market, Wavelet methodology was carried out with daily data (from January 2011 to December 2021), on price and transaction count. Decomposition in scale and frequency indicate that flows were altered by the arrival of new investors, and stronger correlations between prices and transactions were found at lower frequencies (longer time horizon).