Financial Market and Cryptocurrency Shocks on FinTech Performance: Evidence from a Structural VAR Analysis

Abstract

This paper investigates the dynamic relationship between macroeconomic factors—particularly Bitcoin pricing—and the equity returns of firms in the financial technology (FinTech) sector. Using a Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) framework with daily data from July 2013 to March 2025, the analysis examines how shocks in major financial variables affect FinTech equity performance. The results indicate that positive shocks to the S&P 500 index are associated with a significant increase in the FinTech sector indicator, underscoring the sector’s close linkage with overall equity market performance. Shocks to the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield also generate a positive but comparatively weaker and delayed response, suggesting a secondary influence of interest rate dynamics. In contrast, Bitcoin price shocks do not produce a statistically significant effect on FinTech returns, implying limited spillovers from cryptocurrency markets to traditional FinTech equities. Robustness checks using PARCH and TARCH models confirm the stability of these findings. Overall, the evidence suggests that FinTech firms remain more sensitive to developments in conventional financial markets than to movements in digital asset prices, highlighting the sector’s growing integration with institutional finance rather than speculative crypto-based activity.