Beginning in 2020, Covid has increased as a result of a burst put on by a respiratory infection with a substantial peaking fatality rate. The unforeseen occurrence and unchecked global spread of the COVID-19 illness highlight the limitations of current healthcare systems in responding to emergencies affecting public wellness. In these conditions, innovative developments like public blockchain and intelligent systems (AI) have emerged as possible treatments for the covid epidemic. In particular, block chain may help with early identification to combat pandemics. With the measures put in place to prevent infection by wearing masks, social seclusion with a 6m radius, routine testing, and two vaccine doses. This system includes mask measurement, people identification, temp sensors, information tracking, in-person interaction locating, and the current state of a user's medical chart. With the development of technology and increased smartphone usage, illnesses may be tracked and their spread controlled. Considering that the expansion of the business sector's rehabilitation and its continued broad distribution of Covid, it is more crucial to adhere to the instructions to avoid contamination.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the bearish market have led investors to find a safe-haven asset during this financial turbulence. Gold, US Dollar, and Bitcoin traditionally could be safe-haven assets in previous financial crises. However, safe-haven assets are mainly different during each market crash. Therefore, this paper aims to examine gold, US dollars, and Bitcoin as safe-haven assets during the COVID-19 market turmoil in several South East Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. All variables use daily data time series from January 2020 - September 2020. This study will conduct an empirical analysis using Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH). Our result shows that during the COVID-19 pandemic, US Dollar could act as a safe-haven asset in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. It implies that when the condition is uncertain during a pandemic, many investors switch their investments to US dollars in those three countries. On the other hand, gold and bitcoin are not safe-haven assets, but they could only act as hedging for several countries in South-East Asia.
Abstract: We live in a digital age, and Pandemic has accelerated the development of new health care products and introduced new business models and health opportunities. In addition to tele-medicine, supply chain, payment, secure data exchange, and remote monitoring applications, there and they are the latest innovations in blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that enable the exchange of value on fragmented networks. Futurists and technology experts are also exploring how Metaverse can play a role in various fields. This Commentary aims to explore how Metaverse can be used in the future to transform, improve, and possibly transform health care. The following areas covered are teamwork, education, clinical care, wellness, and monetization.
Anna Prisco, Yasser Omar Abdallah, Swapnil Morandé, Mohamed Hani Gheith
Although Blockchain technology has shown its usefulness, there exist limited studies and industrial applications. Presented research investigates factors influencing blockchain adoption. It reflects on how the perceived benefit of blockchain may influence the adoption and how organisational size may affect this process. This study integrates the framework of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and extends it with the perceived benefits of blockchain adoption while including firm size as moderator. Data collected were analysed with a PLS-SEM. Our results showed that a significant predictor of intention to use blockchain is perceived behavioural control. Moreover, it was found that perceived benefit significantly influenced perceived usefulness. Finally, the study demonstrated that SMEs are more efficient in adopting blockchain compared to Large firms.
Aymen TURKI, Ahmed OBEID, Sahar Loukil, Ahmed Jeribi
This study examines the connectedness between G7 indices, Bitcoin, and oil during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on daily data from January 1, 2016 to April 1, 2021, a vector auto-regression model and an impulse response function are employed to illustrate the time path of these assets following own and cross-shocks. Our study exhibits the considerable effect of the pandemic on increasing directional causalities and time-varying connectedness between G7 indices, Bitcoin, and oil. The findings indicate that G7 indices’ own shocks almost immediately lower forecasts of stock return urging the diversification to reduce risk. Moreover, the significant negative response of oil to shocks amid the pandemic reflects its high vulnerability during mitigated periods. Unlike other countries, we find a relative resilience of Bitcoin to S&P 500 shocks, and we consequently recommend Bitcoin as a diversifier to Americaninvestors during the pandemic. Our results are useful for both investors and policymakers who need to think ahead, rather than waiting to have a downside G7 returns movement in turbulent periods.
The study assessed the hedge or safe-haven property of five cryptocurrencies for stocks of three COVID-19 worst-hit African countries. We address two main concerns bordering on the predictive capacity of African stocks for cryptocurrency returns and the safe-haven property that cryptocurrencies could offer to African stocks. A distributed lag model, with explicitly incorporated salient statistical features, was adopted based on its efficient management of parameter proliferation and estimation biases. We ascertained the model’s in-sample predictability and evaluate its out-of-sample forecasts performance in comparison with the historical average model, using Clark and West statistics. While African stocks significantly predicted cryptocurrency returns, the cryptocurrency-stocks nexus revealed the diversifier and safe-haven property of cryptocurrencies for African stocks in periods of normalcy and crisis/pandemic, respectively. Our predictive model outperformed the historical average model in the out-of-sample. Our results may be sensitive to cryptocurrency-stocks nexus and sample periods but not the out-of-sample forecast horizons
This study examines how the COVID-19 pandemic crisis affects the interactions between the stock, oil, gold, currency, and cryptocurrency markets. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis on the optimal asset allocation and optimal hedged strategy are also discussed. Empirical results show that the volatility spillover significantly exists in most of the ten paired markets whereas the return spillover and correlation are significant only for the few paired markets. Moreover, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the return spillover is the greatest followed by the correlation whereas the volatility spillover is not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the Quantitative easing (QE) implemented after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis increases the risk-adjusted return for each asset and minimum variance portfolio (MVP) and raises the correlation between two assets. In addition, most of the pairs of assets are not suitable to hedge each other except for a few pairs of assets. Regarding these few pairs of assets, the optimal hedge asset with the fewer hedge cost is accompanied by less risk reduction and vice versa. Finally, the investors should choose the euro to construct a portfolio to achieve risk diversification and to hedge gold or WTI to get the risk reduction. The above findings can help investors and fund managers make a useful investment strategy, optimal asset allocation, and effective hedged strategy. For example, the investors can use the volatility of one market to predict the volatility of another market and they can take a long position during the post-COVID-19 period but they should withdraw capital from the market when the QE tapering is executed. JEL classification: C52; C53; G15.
Yosra Ghabri, Luu Duc Toan Huynh, Muhammad Ali Nasir
Abstract In the context of the COVID‐19's outbreak and its implications for the financial sector, this study analyses the aspect of hedging and safe‐haven under the pandemic. Drawing on the daily data from 02 August 2019 to 17 April 2020, our key findings suggest that the contagious effects in financial assets' returns significantly increased under COVID‐19, indicating exacerbated market risk. The connectedness spiked in the middle of March, consistent with lockdown timings in major economies. The effect became severe with the WHO's declaration of a pandemic, confirming negative news effects. The return connectedness suggests that COVID‐19 has been a catalyst of contagious effects on the financial markets. The crude oil and the government bonds are however not as much affected by the spillovers as their endogenous innovation. In terms of spillovers, we do find the safe‐haven function of Gold and Bitcoin. Comparatively, the safe‐haven effectiveness of Bitcoin is unstable over the pandemic. Whereas, GOLD is the most promising hedge and safe‐haven asset, as it remains robust during the current crisis of COVID‐19 and thus exhibits superiority over Bitcoin and Tether. Our findings are useful for investors, portfolio managers and policymakers interested in spillovers and safe havens during the current pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused one of the most severe systematic shocks to global financial markets as investors discovered the sudden slumps in major global stocks indexes in March 2020. However, at the same time, the pandemic also accelerated the rise of decentralized finance and cryptocurrencies as the public began to shift their investments from traditional stock markets to the newly emerged fintech markets as the decentralized financial market’s risks hedging ability are believed to be better during global emergencies. Although it’s tempting to attribute these observed phenomena solely to the Covid-19 pandemic, other political shocks such as the US 2020 election and China’s crypto crackdown in 2021 also exacerbated the uncertainties and thus should be considered as potential reasons for the observations. Through theoretical analysis on financial and political economics as well as empirical modeling utilizing Stata17, this report has constructed a time series ARMA-GARCH model quantifying the relationship between Ethereum’s investment return and potential factors including the daily new confirmed cases of Covid-19 and other policy changes, and discovered for the first time that the rise of Ethereum’s investment return is majorly caused by the two aforementioned policy changes, and the rapid infection of Covid-19 only caused a short-term rise in Ethereum’s investment return whereas the daily new infection numbers of the later stage only caused fluctuations to the Ethereum trading market. Based on the findings, the article made recommendations for both policy makers and investors on crypto investments during the fintech era.
This paper examines the forecasting power of daily infectious disease-related uncertainty in predicting the realized volatility of nine foreign exchange futures and the Bitcoin futures series using the heterogeneous autoregressive realized variance model. Our results indicate that the infectious diseases-related uncertainty index plays a crucial role in predicting the future path of foreign exchange and Bitcoin futures realized volatility in all the selected time intervals. These findings have important implications for portfolio managers and investors during periods of high levels of uncertainty associated with infectious diseases.
At the beginning of 2020, the panic of Covid-19 had an excessive impact on global economics and the financial market. Based on the unit root test, this paper exposes the newly global Covid-19 confirmed cases and the rate of return of Ethereum and Bitcoin are stationary time series. This paper further completes the VAR model and ARMA-GARCH model. The VAR model examines the effect of newly confirmed cases on to rate of return of Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the ARMA-GARCH model scrutinizes the newly confirmed cases to the fluctuation of Bitcoin and Ethereum. This study found that the impact of the COVID-19 on cryptocurrency earnings was short-term, and did not improve the market volatility.
Waluyo Jati, Rachmawaty Rachmawaty, Holiawati Holiawati, Iman Syatoto
Indonesia has had the critical issue of economic growth in the last ten years which the trend of economic growth was declining year by year, in 2011 GDP growth YoY was 6.5% then declined become 5% in 2019 (before Covid-19 pandemic) and worst in Pandemic Era become -5.3%. This research aims to provide an understanding of the effect of short term and long term of Financial Innovation, Stock Market and Cryptocurrency on Indonesia's economic growth using the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) method. The methode was chosen based on Stationary Analysis and Cointegration Test. It is shown that the data was non-Stationary and the result of Cointegration Test there was a conintegration at 0.05 level. Enrich with the analysis in Impulse Response and Variance Decomposition to obtain the fluctuated economic growth impacted by those variables on a monthly basis, which previous researchers have not researched. The results showed that the correlation of the Stock Market, Financial Innovation and Cryptocurrency to Indonesia's economic growth, in the long run, all the variables give a positive correlation. Still, in the short-run, only the stock market and economic growth give a positive correlation. The result of the long and short run of VECM is supported by Impulse response and variance decomposition that stock market has the most significant impact to economic growth
Purpose This paper aims to examine the impact of investor attention due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Twitter-based sentiment towards uncertainty and public sentiment on the performance of cryptocurrencies. Design/methodology/approach The authors employ the simple linear regression, quantile regression (QR), the exponential generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (EGARCH) model, and sentiment analysis to examine this phenomenon. The authors utilise the daily closing price of the 20 leading cryptocurrencies, the Google search volume index of the “Coronavirus” keyword, the Twitter-based economic uncertainty index, and textual data collected from the Reddit social media platform. Findings The results show that investor attention and Twitter uncertainty have a negative (positive) effect on cryptocurrency returns (volatility). The QR results indicate a heterogeneous effect of investor attention and Twitter economic uncertainty on cryptocurrency returns with a higher effect in the lower quantiles. The findings indicate that cryptocurrencies fail to act as a safe haven during this pandemic. Originality/value The study is amongst the very few studies that capture the impact of investor attention/sentiment due to COVID-19 on the performance of cryptocurrencies.
This research investigates the effects of several measures of Twitter-based sentiment on cryptocurrencies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Innovative economic, as well as market uncertainty measures based on Tweets, along the lines of Baker et al. (2021), are employed in an attempt to measure how investor sentiment influences the returns and volatility of major cryptocurrencies, developing on non-linear Granger causality tests. Evidence suggests that Twitter-derived sentiment mainly influences Litecoin, Ethereum, Cardano and Ethereum Classic when considering mean estimates. Moreover, uncertainty measures non-linearly influence each cryptocurrency examined, at all quantiles except for Cardano at lower quantiles, and both Ripple and Stellar at both lower and higher quantiles. Cryptocurrencies with lower values are found to be unaffected by investor sentiment at extreme values, however, prove to be profitable due to more aligned investor behaviour.