Christian Fieberg, Gerrit Liedtke, Thorsten Poddig, Thomas Walker · 5 authors
Abstract We propose CTREND, a new trend factor for cryptocurrency returns, which aggregates price and volume information across different time horizons. Using data on more than 3,000 coins, we employ machine learning methods to exploit information from various technical indicators. The resulting signal reliably predicts cryptocurrency returns. The effect cannot be subsumed by known factors and remains robust across different subperiods, market states, and alternative research designs. Moreover, it survives the impact of transaction costs and persists in big and liquid coins. Finally, an asset pricing model that incorporates CTREND outperforms competing factor models, providing a superior explanation of cryptocurrency returns.
We examine the volume-volatility relationship across Bitcoin futures and spot markets, using daily realised volatility measures estimated from high frequency intraday data. We estimate realised spot volatility across five major exchanges using both the standard volume weighted price and using a new approach, inspired by the CME Bitcoin Reference Rate methodology. We find that unexpected trading volume is the most important explanatory variable for BRR spot volatility, explaining 20% of variation in price volatility at exchange level. Conversely, we find that both expected and unexpected CME Bitcoin futures volumes play a very limited or even calming role in systemic volatility. Our findings suggest that CME Bitcoin futures are not independently contributing to systemic risk in Bitcoin over the period studied.
Deep learning methods have achieved significant success in various applications, including trend signal prediction in financial markets. However, most existing approaches only utilize price action data. In this paper, we propose a novel system that incorporates multiple data sources and market correlations to predict the trend signal of Ethereum cryptocurrency. We conduct experiments to investigate the relationship between price action, candlestick patterns, and Ethereum-Bitcoin correlation, aiming to achieve highly accurate trend signal predictions. We evaluate and compare two different training strategies for Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), one based on transfer learning and the other on training from scratch. Our proposed 1-Dimensional CNN (1DCNN) model can also identify inflection points in price trends during specific periods through the analysis of statistical indicators. We demonstrate that our model produces more reliable predictions when utilizing multiple data representations. Our experiments show that by combining different types of data, it is possible to accurately identify both inflection points and trend signals with an accuracy of 98%.
Ahmet Faruk Aysan, Massimiliano Caporin, Oğuzhan Çepni
This paper analyzes the relationship between price jumps and news sentiment in cryptocurrencies. We detect jumps at the intraday level and correlate their occurrence with sentiment-related events through logistic regressions. We show that the release of information increases the probability of price jumps. By examining the content of news stories, we find that sentiment dimensions limited to emotions or related to market fundamentals have more potential to result in price jumps than others, suggesting that “words are not all created equal”. Jump sensitivity to news sentiment varies across different coin characteristics.
The Ethereum blockchain network enables transaction processing and smart-contract execution through levies of transaction fees, commonly known as gas fees. This framework mediates economic participation via a market-based mechanism for gas fees, permitting users to offer higher gas fees to expedite processing. Historically, the ensuing gas fee volatility led to critical disequilibria between supply and demand for block space, presenting stakeholder challenges. This study examines the dynamic causal interplay between transaction fees and economic subsystems leveraging the network. By utilizing data related to unique active wallets and transaction volume of each subsystem and applying time-varying Granger causality analysis, we reveal temporal heterogeneity in causal relationships between economic activity and transaction fees across all subsystems. This includes (a) a bidirectional causal feedback loop between cross-blockchain bridge user activity and transaction fees, which diminishes over time, potentially signaling user migration; (b) a bidirectional relationship between centralized cryptocurrency exchange deposit and withdrawal transaction volume and fees, indicative of increased competition for block space; (c) decentralized exchange volumes causally influence fees, while fees causally influence user activity, although this relationship is weakening, potentially due to the diminished significance of decentralized finance; (d) intermittent causal relationships with maximal extractable value bots; (e) fees causally influence non-fungible token transaction volumes; and (f) a highly significant and growing causal influence of transaction fees on stablecoin activity and transaction volumes highlight its prominence. These results inform strategic considerations for stakeholders to more effectively plan, utilize, and advocate for economic activities on Ethereum, enhancing the understanding and optimization of within the rapidly evolving economy.
With the increasing adoption of the Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain, it is timely to study the economy created by such blockchain. In this chapter, we will survey recent progress on the trading and wealth evolution in a cryptocurrency where the new coins are issued according to the PoS protocol. We first consider the wealth evolution in the PoS protocol assuming no trading, and focus on the problem of decentralisation. Next we consider each miner's trading incentive and strategy through the lens of optimal control, where the miner needs to trade off PoS mining and trading. Finally, we study the collective behavior of the miners in a PoS trading environment by a mean field model. We use both stochastic and analytic tools in our study. A list of open problems are also presented.
This paper presents a dynamic equilibrium model of Ethereum's macroeconomy. The model captures agents' decisions regarding ETH holdings, staking, and the use of blockspace on both the Ethereum mainnet and Layer 2 networks. The ETH supply evolves according to protocol rules. The model's long-run behavior is characterized analytically, and key properties of the staking share and the price of ETH are derived. The model is calibrated using market data on ETH prices and transaction fees. Alternative issuance curves are evaluated for their effectiveness in managing staking levels.
Tim Weingärtner, Fabian Fasser, Pedro Costa, Walter Farkas
Decentralized finance (DeFi) promises a revolution in financial accessibility, transparency, and automation. Yet, its very novelty exposes participants to a number of additional risks and challenges. This study aims to address the risks associated with DeFi, while also conducting a comparative analysis to those of classical/traditional finance (TradFi). After introducing DeFi and its defining characteristics, such as the use of smart contracts, blockchain technology, and decentralized governance, the paper outlines the principal risks associated with DeFi. Drawing insights from an extensive literature review of 200 recent articles, of which 50 were thoroughly analyzed, the study compares risks of DeFi and TradFi, categorizing these into systematic and unsystematic risks. Furthermore, we introduce the ‘risk wheel’, an innovative tool tailored to understand and navigate the subtleties of DeFi risks, finding potential applications in risk assessment, management, and even education. This paper’s primary objective is to provide a detailed and impartial examination of the risks associated with DeFi and their comparison to traditional finance in order to assist stakeholders in making informed decisions and mitigating possible losses.
This study examines the price dynamics of Bitcoin and Ethereum between 2013 and 2022 using two distinct approaches: financial market technical analysis and econometric analysis. Financial market technical analysis employs indicators such as the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the Hull moving average, while econometric analysis involves the Hodrick-Prescott filter and an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. The study shows that Bitcoin and Ethereum experienced supercycle years in 2013, 2017, and 2021. The Bitcoin cycle, which averages 3.5 years, was particularly emphasized. The impact of the Bitcoin halving is also noteworthy, especially in the formation of supercycle bubbles in 2021, which affected altcoins such as Ethereum. The implications of this extend to portfolio management advice. It is recommended to carefully evaluate portfolio diversification and adopt a proactive regulatory approach, especially during the Bitcoin halving period.
Based on the global economic downturn, the price of Bitcoin has recovered, and new investors are constantly pouring into the Bitcoin market. To ensure that new investors have a basic understanding of Bitcoin and avoid unnecessary losses, this article will analyze Bitcoin's Trading Mechanisms, Price Influencers, and Trading Recommendations The main research finds that when Bitcoin is used as a currency, commodity, risk asset, and digital gold, the price factors are quite different. For example, when it is used as a risk asset, its price is affected by capital flows, market sentiment, and policy regulation. The multiple nature of Bitcoin will have a greater impact on investors' judgments. Through research, it is found that Bitcoin is still the virtual currency with the largest volume, the largest transaction volume, and the brightest future development prospects. The diversity of its nature brings risks but also brings a variety advantages of to the single currency or other financial products.
In the five years after the launch of bitcoin futures, academics and investors' perceptions have shifted from the early view that they raise the risk of bitcoin to the present acceptance of their ability to serve as derivatives. This change indicates that bitcoin futures have the potential to improve. What influences the bitcoin market has received from bitcoin futures is investigated in this paper. The introduction of bitcoin futures has offered a feasible hedging strategy for bitcoin investors, enhanced the stability and information effectiveness of the bitcoin market, also eased the investment barrier for bitcoin, based on study and comparison of previous research on bitcoin futures. However, because bitcoin futures are the novel type of futures contract, the market is complicated, and investors prefer to trade unregulated futures, whereas regulated futures are traded in considerably lesser quantities due to position limitations. Exchanges that regulate bitcoin futures should consider changing their contract positions to allow more investors to engage in trading while obtaining regulatory protections in to enable the bitcoin futures market to develop more maturely in the future.
In recent decades, data analytics has become increasingly involved in people's daily lives. Machine learning, an important part of data analysis, has also been used in the financial sector. Contemporarily, the high volatility feature of cryptocurrencies has attracted lots of investors, which also brings lots of difficulty to predict and analyze. In fact, the price of cryptocurrencies can also be forecasted based on machine learning. This paper uses historical data of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin as inputs to predict the future value based on the LSTM. LSTM model can learn the long-term dependencies in data. According to the analysis, mean absolute error calculate the average size of the error in a set of predictions, regardless of its direction. The results produced can roughly predict the future trends of these three cryptocurrencies. This paper combines the fields of machine learning and finance to predict the future value of cryptocurrencies. These results shed light on guiding further exploration of predicting cryptocurrency assets valuation based on LSTM model.
Bu çalışmada, kripto piyasasının önde gelen altı kripto para biriminin (Bitcoin, Stellar, Litecoin, Ethereum, Tether ve Ripple) volatil yapısı, asimetrik ilişki ve/ve ya kaldıraç etkisinin var olup olmadığı test edilmektedir. 09/11/2017-31/07/2022 dönemini kapsayan ve WinBUGS uygulaması ile yapılan bu çalışmada öncelikle logaritmik fark alınarak getiri serisi hesaplanmıştır. Bu kapsamda 100.000 tekrarla örneklem sınaması yapılmış olup katsayıların başlangıç eğiliminden çıkması için tahminlerin ilk 10.000 örneklemi dışlanarak kalan 90.000 örneklemle analiz gerçekleştirilmiştir. Asimetrik stokastik volatilite modeli tahmin sonuçlarına göre kripto para birimlerinin oynaklık kalıcılığı, oynaklığın öngörülebilirliği ve para birimlerinin kendi getirilerinin şoku ile oynaklıklarının etkisi arasındaki korelasyon düzeyi ilgili parametreler ile değerlendirilmiştir. Belirtilen zaman aralığında çalışmamızda kullanılan tüm kripto para birimleri için yoğun bir volatilite kümelenmesi olduğu gözlemlenmiştir. Bu volatilitenin sürekli olduğu ve düşük öngörülebilirliğin varlığı ampirik olarak asimetrik stokastik volatilite modeli ile elde edilen bulgular arasındadır. Ayrıca çalışmanın sonuçlarına göre Ethereum kripto para birimi dışındaki diğer beş para biriminin hiçbirinde ne kaldıraç etkisi ne de asimetrik ilişkisinin hiçbiri gözlemlenmemiştir.
In recent years, digital innovations especially emerged depend on Blockchain technology have caused a substantial transformation in the finance sector as in other sectors. Different financial assets have been revealed and began to be used as an investment tool along with this transformation in the markets. Cryptocurrencies that have a digital structure hold an important place among these assets. Dramatically increases in the daily transaction volume of currencies in the market have brought along different types of risks. These risks raised uncertainty on these currencies. Moreover, because cryptocurrencies are mostly used for the purpose of investment and speculation, it is important to understand the volatility movements and co-movements of cryptocurrencies and is substantially important, particularly because volatility can influence investment decisions. This study aims to determine the volatility transmission between cryptocurrencies to find useful answers about the volatility and the efficiency of markets. Daily logarithmic return series between 18 January 2018 – 14 February 2021 were used to analyze the volatility of five of the most common cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), IOTA by applying the RALS-ADF test, EGARCH, and DCC-GARCH models. We determined whether the market is efficient or not, and tested the existence of the asymmetric effect and volatility transmission in the market. According to our results, volatility shocks are not obtained persistent for only BTC. Furthermore, the presence of asymmetric effects and leverage effect valid for four cryptocurrencies. While asymmetric effects observed for BTC, no leverage effect has been observed during the period. We also analyzed nine pair-wise cryptocurrencies applying the DCC-GARCH model and we found that dynamic conditional correlation coefficients are statistically significant and positive for each pair.
In this study we investigate possible long-range trends in the cryptocurrency market. We employed the Hurst exponent in a sample covering the period from 1 January 2016 to 26 March 2021. We calculated the Hurst exponent in three non-overlapping consecutive windows and in the whole sample. Using these windows, we assessed the dynamic evolution in the structure and long-range trend behavior of the cryptocurrency market and evaluated possible changes in their behavior towards an efficient market. The innovation of this research is that we employ the Hurst exponent to identify the long-range properties, a tool that is seldomly used in analysis of this market. Furthermore, the use of both the R/S and the DFA analysis and the use of non-overlapping windows enhance our research’s novelty. Finally, we estimated the Hurst exponent for a wide sample of cryptocurrencies that covered more than 80% of the entire market for the last six years. The empirical results reveal that the returns follow a random walk making it difficult to accurately forecast them.