The fluctuation characteristics of financial time series have always been one of the research hotspots in the academic community. Generally speaking, financial return series have the characteristics of volatility clustering, fat tails, conditional heteroskedasticity, asymmetric shocks, etc. The above phenomena can be explained from the perspective of dynamic conditional variance by GARCH models and their extensions. This paper first introduces the basic ideas of ARCH and GARCH models, with a focus on the issue of volatility clustering of financial returns. Then, it reviews the relevant research from three aspects: model evolution, application scenarios, and practical value. It also analyzes the role of GARCH-type models in capturing volatility persistence, asymmetric impact, and risk transmission through applications in cryptocurrencies, energy assets, and high-frequency financial data. The study shows that GARCH-type models capture the volatility clustering feature of financial returns well, but there is still room to improve the modeling of extreme risk, the handling of high-dimensional assets, and model interpretability.
Crypto currency is one of most interesting financial innovation of 21st century. Crypto currency trading not only involve financial literacy while trading but also there are psychological factors affecting the decision of traders. Keeping in view the psychological factors and investorsâ decision, this research study is designed to investigate the complex interplay between psychological triggers and market dynamics in the cryptocurrency sector in Pakistan, specifically examining how these elements coalesce to drive investor behavior and market volatility. While traditional financial models often attribute asset fluctuations to technological or fundamental shifts, this study posits that cryptocurrency markets are fundamentally driven by human perception and emotional reactivity. Utilizing a quantitative methodological approach, data was collected from a sample of 175 experienced traders to analyze the impact of emotional states, market sentiment, and behavioral discipline on trading outcomes. The empirical results, derived through multiple linear regression analysis, reveal that the model possesses a high level of explanatory power, accounting for 56% of the variance in emotional trading behavior (R2=0.56R2=0.56). Market sentiment emerged as the primary determinant of impulsive trading (β=0.48β=0.48), demonstrating that external social cues often exert a stronger influence on decision-making than internal emotional states. Among specific psychological variables, Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) were identified as the most significant predictors of rash choices (β=0.34β=0.34), while the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) also demonstrated a substantial, though secondary, effect (β=0.21β=0.21). Conversely, the study found that trading experience and the application of systematic strategies serve as vital moderating factors that decrease emotional reactivity and enhance behavioral stability (β=â0.19β=â0.19). The findings contribute to the fields of behavioral finance and digital economics by illustrating that the volatility inherent in digital assets is a systemic byproduct of individual psychological biases aggregated through digital narratives. The research concludes that achieving a sustainable financial ecosystem requires moving beyond purely technical regulations. Instead, it advocates for the implementation of behaviorally-informed safeguards, such as algorithmic "cooling-off" periods and sentiment-aware trading tools, to mitigate the risks associated with reactive investing. Ultimately, this work provides a blueprint for a more resilient digital financial future by prioritizing human factors in market governance.
Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have emerged as an innovative mechanism for raising capital, particularly for blockchain-based projects. However, the lack of regulatory oversight and the prevalence of low-quality information raise important questions about what truly drives ICO success. While existing literature focuses predominantly on technical and signalling variables, the role of investor decision-making remains theoretically underdeveloped and empirically underexplored. This paper addresses this gap by pursuing two objectives. First, we identify the drivers of ICO success using a probit model applied to an original sample of 535 ICOs conducted between January 2016 and May 2021. Second, we investigate investor decision-making patterns using a novel dataset of 200 active crypto-forum participants over the same period. Our results have three main findings, though with modest statistical strength than initially estimated. (I) Marketing channels are the most consistent predictor of ICO success across the sample period, clearing conventional significance thresholds only in the pooled sample (z = 1.90, p<0.10), with each additional channel raising the probability of soft-cap achievement by approximately 1.0 percentage point. (II) Team presentation and video presentation show no meaningful influence on success in any period. (III) Whitepaper availability is not statistically significant even in pooled sample, reinforcing rather than qualifying its irrelevance as a predictor; the number of accepted cryptocurrency price speculation rather than project fundamentals, consistent with mood and sentiment dominating information-based decision making in ICO markets, though this finding should be read alongside the data limitations discussed in 3.B. These findings contribute to the behavioural finance literature by providing an operational definition of âinvestor moodâ and demonstrating its empirical relevance in crypto markets. We conclude that understanding investor mood is not a secondary question but a necessary complement to technical analysis of ICO success.
Decentralised finance (DeFi) is a relatively new trend in finance that uses blockchain, smart contracts, and distributed ledger technology to offer financial services in a decentralised manner. Although scholars have made many theoretical advances in decentralised finance in recent years, knowledge of its theoretical structure and future research areas remains limited. This is why this study provides a bibliometric analysis of 1002 articles on DeFi published in Scopus between 2012 and 2026. The analysis uses performance analysis and a science mapping approach based on citation analysis, co-authorship, bibliographic coupling and keyword co-occurrence analysis. The results reveal a remarkably high annual growth rate of 39.34% and DeFiâs dynamism and interdisciplinary nature. The three main countries involved in DeFi research are the USA, China, and the UK. Management Science, Energy Economics and Technological Forecasting and Social Change became the main scientific journals for disseminating knowledge about DeFi. Analysis of thematic changes showed a transition of scientific interests from blockchain and cryptocurrencies to new topics, like artificial intelligence, sustainability, governance, and financial inclusion. Overall, the current study provides a better understanding of the intellectual, conceptual, and social basis of DeFi and highlights possible research areas in the use of artificial intelligence in DeFi, decentralised governance, and sustainable digital financial system development.
This informative document explores the evolving digital asset landscape, covering cryptocurrency, NFTs, blockchain technology, Web3, and emerging market trends. It provides readers with practical insights into digital ownership, market developments, and the importance of research when evaluating opportunities in the growing blockchain economy. Collective Shift
Technological innovations are often perceived as something alien, terrifying, and monstrous. Blockchain technology that creates shared âblocksâ of information, which are interconnected and verified by the network comes as no exception. Two main features of blockchain (1) the absence of a gatekeeper organisation controlling the data, and (2) the fact that the information is rather hard to corrupt and hack, makes the technology very attractive and versatile. It is also what makes it appear frightening, especially for the traditionally centralised and hierarchical disciplines like law. As there is no one to control the data and the access to it, blockchains open a whole world of new possibilities with cryptocurrencies being one of the most popular examples.Approaching blockchain technologies in the context of J. J. Cohenâs monster theory demonstrates that they can be perceived as modern monsters. Our inability to understand the technology and the way it works makes this particular monster both fearful and desired (thesis 6), and law reacts to the fears that circulate in the society. Thus, blockchain technologies are often banned by law in a similar way as in medieval narratives dragons were banished by saints and heroes. Building on Cohenâs thesis 7, which argues that monsters show how we (mis)interpret our surroundings, this article will employ the historical perspective upon the fear of the monstrous to create a better understanding of the legal policies surrounding blockchains. By comparing current legal decisions concerning blockchain technology with the strategies of dealing with monsters, offered by medieval chronicles and collections of wonders (including William of Malmesbury and William of Newburgh), we will analyse the modern way of controlling monsters â or controlling the fear of them.
This perspective examines whether nuclear fusion can provide a scalable, low-carbon power source for rapidly growing AI-driven data center demand. As large language models, cloud computing, and cryptocurrency mining accelerate electricity consumption growth, data centers are projected to account for a substantially larger share of U.S. and global electricity use in the coming decades, creating significant pressure on grid reliability and decarbonization goals. We evaluate the technical and economic alignment between data center load profiles and nuclear power, particularly fusion, through a comparative analysis of capacity factors, levelized cost of electricity, grid interconnection constraints, and deployment pathways. Unlike intermittent renewables, nuclear fission and fusion offer high-capacity-factor, firm baseload generation suited to AI training and inference workloads that require continuous, reliable power. Preliminary techno-economic analysis suggests that several Nth-of-a-kind fusion concepts, particularly magnetic confinement systems, may become cost-competitive with firmed renewable systems and advanced fission for hyperscale data center applications. Co-location of fusion plants with data centers further reduces transmission bottlenecks, improves resilience, and aligns with emerging hyperscaler procurement strategies. We also assess recent regulatory developments and argue that fusion's favorable safety profile and reduced waste burden improve its long-term social and political viability relative to fission. We conclude that fusion represents a strategically important pathway for sustainably powering next-generation computing infrastructure and should be prioritized in both policy and industrial deployment planning.
The Triadic Stress Index (TSI) takes a network index whose four factors were first observed in soil microbiome co-occurrence networks and applies it, without alteration, to the correlation network of financial assets. We test it on five markets spanning 2006-2026 (equities including banking crises and the AI sector, cryptocurrencies, commodities, foreign exchange and sovereign debt), against three independent definitions of a crisis episode, at a fixed alarm budget, out of sample, with block-bootstrap intervals and a Holm correction across the family of tests. The benchmarks are the Absorption Ratio, the industry standard used by MSCI and central banks; the effective rank and the Vendi score, the sharpest spectral measures available; Ollivier-Ricci curvature; and the global and local balance indices of signed correlation networks. Three comparisons favour the index. It carries a per-node decomposition, diag(A^3), naming which asset is carrying the concentration with no parameter to select, and scores 0.97-0.99 against 0.33-0.84 for the only published per-node alternative, whereas spectral attribution must first choose how many components to read and collapses under a standard but wrong choice. Its alarms are the cleanest of anything tested, 4.0% of them with no matching episode against 14.7% for the effective rank and roughly 59% for the Absorption Ratio. And it beats the Absorption Ratio on detection by 0.273 in F1 out of sample, p<0.0005. The remaining comparisons are ties. Against the effective rank and the Vendi score the index ties in every scheme and both samples, and the margin over the Absorption Ratio narrows under the strictest labelling. On real matrices the far simpler node degree reproduces the attribution. A lead-lag analysis puts the peak cross-correlation at zero lag: this is a coincident state index, not a forecast.
This study investigates whether the macroscopic statistical maturity of cryptocurrencies implies dynamical equivalence with traditional equity markets. We analyze high-frequency data (2020--2025) using the Complexity--Entropy Causality Plane (CECP) and directed horizontal visibility graphs (directed HVG) to uncover complex temporal patterns and time-directed structures in the return series. While conventional stylized facts show striking convergence across all assets, structural diagnostics reveal a compelling paradox: cryptocurrencies appear more locally random than the equity benchmark during ordinary periods, yet exhibit significantly stronger directional time-irreversibility around high-visibility return events. The absolute-return results show that large cryptocurrency fluctuations tend to begin abruptly and remain elevated afterward. Separate analyses of positive returns and negative-return magnitudes show that this pattern is shared across cryptocurrencies on the upside but varies across assets on the downside. We conclude that statistical maturity is only skin-deep; the underlying dynamical processes of mature cryptocurrencies remain fundamentally distinct from traditional benchmarks.
Ira Nath, Sanjukta Chatterjee, Rangan Nath, Rumpa Paul ¡ 5 authors
CryptC provides users with secure wallet services to protect their digital cryptocurrency assets as a modern cryptocurrency solution. Multiple platforms can adopt CryptC through the React Native interface while users can enjoy easy access using authentication from Firebase and Firestore for data and security features. Ganache with ethers.js enables the wallet to perform safe blockchain transactions while operating on a local Ethereum blockchain through its Ganache access. Secure compliance requirements are achieved by the platform through its transaction logging system and scalable functionality and biometric asset security measures, and balance update capabilities. The platform features an interface that combines professional and beginner user capabilities through an interactive dashboard, together with horizontal list presentation and user-focused design execution. The DeFi (Decentralized finance) ecosystem tool CryptC provides real-time operation capabilities that outperforms conventional wallet features like PIN base verification, Real-time Ethereum (ETH) transaction, minimalistic mobile-friendly UI etc. Our work provides comprehensive information about CryptC, along with its unique design specification through android App and security protocols, while validating the platform for payments at multiple operational levels.
This paper examines how Bitcoin returns interact with macroeconomic and financial driversâspecifically inflation, industrial production, money supply, stock market returns, the wholesale price index, and financial conditionsâusing monthly data from April 2015 to March 2025. Methodologically, we apply Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) tests, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, and vector autoregression (VAR) modelling. Because not all variables are stationary at levels, the VAR model is estimated with differencing. The OLS results indicate that traditional macroeconomic factors do not effectively explain Bitcoin returns. However, the VAR analysis reveals that inflation significantly Granger-causes Bitcoin returns, whereas financial conditions and equity markets show negligible predictive power. Impulse response functions confirm that macroeconomic shocks hit Bitcoin only in the short term, and variance decomposition shows that over 84% of Bitcoinâs volatility is driven by its own innovations. We conclude that Bitcoin remains a largely decoupled, self-driven asset with minimal integration into traditional macroeconomic fundamentals, despite a modest predictive link to inflation. JEL classification numbers: G12, E31, E44. Keywords: Cryptocurrency, macroeconomic, VAR model, ADF test.
Cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs) listed on European exchanges provide a regulated environment for studying intraday market anomalies. We study four Bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs traded on Xetra and Nasdaq Stockholm over the period January 2024 - December 2025 using one-minute bars. As a benchmark, we adopt an extreme value theory approach in which anomalous bars are defined as returns falling below a threshold estimated by fitting a generalised Pareto distribution to left-tail exceedances. We then propose three new binary anomaly indicators. The first, a cross-venue divergence anomaly, identifies venue-specific price divergence between the two exchanges. The second is a no-recovery anomaly that identifies extreme price drops followed by little or no recovery over the next ten active bars. The third is a momentum-reversal anomaly that identifies extreme price drops following positive short-term momentum. Although each anomaly type represents fewer than 1% of one-minute bars, statistical analysis using Mann-Whitney U tests shows that anomaly observations exhibit significantly higher effective spreads, higher values of liquidity-related ratios, and more pronounced order-flow imbalances than non-anomalous bars. Furthermore, employing an out-of-sample prediction methodology with four classifiers - random forest, logistic regression, extreme gradient boosting, and light gradient boosting machine - shows that all four anomaly types are predictable one bar ahead, with AUC-ROC values of up to 0.82. Permutation importance indicates that short-term volatility and drawdown measures are generally more useful for prediction than microstructure variables.