This paper examines the dynamic linkages of green bond with the energy and crypto market. The S&P green bond index (RSPGB) is used as a proxy for the green bond market; S&P global clean energy index and ISE global wind energy (RIGW) are used as proxies for the renewable energy market, and; Bitcoin and Ethereum (RETHER) are used as the proxies of the crypto market. The daily prices of these constituent series are collected using Bloomberg from October 3, 2016 to February 23, 2021. We undertake an empirical analysis through the application of three key tests, namely: dynamic conditional correlation (DCC), Diebold and Yilmaz (Int J Forecast 28(1):57-66, 2012. 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2011.02.006), Baruník and Křehlík (J Financ Econom 16(2):271-296, 2018. 10.1093/jjfinec/nby001) model. The DCC reveals no dynamic linkages of volatility from the green bond to the energy and crypto market in the short run. Referring to Diebold and Yilmaz (2012), it dictates that the green bond (RSPGB) is a net receiver while the energy market (RIGW) and cryptocurrency (RETHER) are the largest and least contributors to the transmission of the volatility. Additionally, the Baruník and Křehlík (2018) model confirmed that the magnitude of the total spillover is high in more prolonged than shorter periods, suggesting reduced diversification opportunities. Overall, the present study exemplifies the significance of the green bond market as protection against risk.
This study investigates mean and volatility spillover effects among eight major cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Stellar, Bitcoin Cash, Cardano and EOS utilizing VAR-BEKK-GARCH model. The results point out that there are bidirectional and unidirectional spillover effects among these major cryptocurrencies. Moreover, the findings indicate that some cryptocurrencies are the transmitter, while others act as a receiver and among all, Litecoin is the highest transmitter, and Stellar is the only one that acts as a receiver. The interdependence among cryptocurrencies supports that they are becoming more integrated and thereby, provides important investment strategies for investors and policy implications for regulators.
Adedeji Daniel Gbadebo, Joseph Olorunfemi Akande, Ahmed Oluwatobi Adekunle
Purpose: A major challenge traders, speculators and investors are grappling with is how to accurately forecast Bitcoin price in the cryptocurrency market. This study is aimed to uncover the best model for the forecasts of Bitcoin price as well as to verify the price series that offers the best predictions performance under different periodicity of datasets. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopts three different data periods to verify whether frequency matters in forecasting Bitcoin price. The Bitcoin price, from 01/01/15 to 11/01/2021, is trained and validated on selected forecast models, including the Naïve, Linear, Exponential Smoothing Model, ARIMA, Neural Network, STL and Holt-Winters filters. Five forecast accuracy measures (RSME, MAE, MPE, MAPE and MASE) are applied to confirm the best performing model. The Diebold‐Mariano test is used to compare the forecasts based on the daily price with those based on the weekly and monthly. Findings: Based on the accuracy measures, the results indicate that the Naïve model provides more accurate performance for the daily series, while the linear model outperforms others for the weekly and monthly series. Using the Diebold‐Mariano statistics, there is evidence that forecasting Bitcoin price is not sensitive to the data periodicity. Research limitations/implications: The study has a major limitation, which is the shared sentiment to apply actual Bitcoin price series, and not the returns or log transformation for the forecast models. Notably, actual data may sometimes be loud, hence increasing the possibility of over predictions. Originality/value: In forecasting, different approaches have been used, this paper compares outputs of both statistical and machine learning methods in order to arrive at the best option for the Bitcoin price forecasts. Hence, we investigate whether the machine learning tools offer better forecasts in terms of lower error and higher model’s accuracy relative to the traditional models.
Cryptocurrency markets have experienced large growth in recent years, with an increase in the number and diversity of traded assets. Previous work has addressed the economic properties of Bitcoin with regards to its hedging or diversification properties. However, the surge of many alternatives, applications, and decentralized finance services on a variety of blockchain networks requires a re-examination of those properties, including indexes from outside the big economies and the inclusion of a variety of cryptocurrencies. In this paper, we report the results of studying the most representative cryptocurrency of each consensus mechanism by trading volume, forming a list of twenty-four cryptocurrencies from the 1st of January 2018 to the 30th of September 2022. Using the Baur and McDermott model, we examine hedge, safe haven, and diversifier properties of all assets for all G7 country’s major indexes as well as all BRICS major indexes breaking it down by two attributes: kind of blockchain technology and pre/during COVID health crisis. Results show that both attributes play an important role in the hedge, safe haven, and diversifier properties associated with the asset. Concretely: stablecoins appear to be the only ones to maintain hedge property in most analyzed markets pre- and during-COVID; Bitcoin investment properties shifted after the COVID crisis started; China and Russia stopped being correlated with the cryptocurrency after the COVID crisis hit.
The COVID-19 pandemic poses a serious threat to investors in the crude oil market. Furthermore, investors have an increasing need to find a safe haven in their investment portfolios when facing unprecedented risks in crude oil markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a review of the literature, there are contradictory findings on which investment is the safer haven for the oil market. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate whether bitcoin is a safer haven for the crude oil market than the commonly used gold during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three spillover measurements based on the time, and frequency domains, and a network framework are employed to quantify the return spillover effects among bitcoin, gold and three major crude oil futures markets. We divide the sample into two periods, pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19. The results show that bitcoin has a weak safe-haven effect on the crude oil market only over a short period, while gold maintains a good safe-haven ability for crude oil futures across various time horizons (frequencies), both before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this study have important implications for policy-makers, crude oil producers and global investors. In particularly, investors cannot ignore the importance of bitcoin and gold in selecting more profitable portfolio policies when searching for safe-haven assets.
Blanka Łęt, Konrad Sobański, Wojciech Świder, Katarzyna Włosik
Abstract This article sheds new light on the informational efficiency of the cryptocurrency market by analyzing investment strategies based on structural factors related to on-chain data. The study aims to verify whether investors in the cryptocurrency market can outperform passive investment strategies by applying active strategies based on selected fundamental factors. The research uses daily data from 2015 to 2022 for the two major cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). The study applies statistical tests for differences. The findings indicate informational inefficiency of the BTC and ETH markets. They seem consistent over time and are confirmed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research shows that the net unrealized profit/loss and percent of addresses in profit indicators are useful in designing active investment strategies in the cryptocurrency market. The factor-based strategies perform consistently better in terms of mean/median returns and Sharpe ratio than the passive “buy-and-hold” strategy. Moreover, the rate of success is close to 100%.
This study analyses and compares the behavior of the gold-backed, conventional cryptocurrency, and gold markets capable of detecting the existence of herding and deducing the efficiency degree. In addition, this empirical work tried to examine the COVID-19 pandemic's influence on both cryptocurrency performances. This work developed a new method that discloses herding biases using persistence and efficiency metrics. Besides, this paper investigated the nonlinear dynamic properties of the gold-backed, conventional cryptocurrencies and Gold by estimating the Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (MFDFA). It also assessed the inefficiency of these markets through an efficiency index (IEI) and tested the effect of COVID-19 on their dynamics. The findings of this investigation indicate that the gold-backed cryptocurrency (X8X) is the most efficient market in the long-term trading market. However, the conventional cryptocurrency market (Bitcoin) is the most efficient on the short trade horizon. Besides, gold-backed cryptocurrency markets present a smaller level of herding behavior than conventional cryptocurrencies on tall scales. Nevertheless, we noted the positive and negative effects of the pandemic on each cryptocurrency market dynamics. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first investigation that uses multifractal analysis to quantify the impact of the COVID-19 spread on gold-backed cryptocurrencies and detects the presence of herding behavior.
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.
Purpose This study aims to investigate the safe-haven and hedging properties of Bitcoin against a wide variety of conventional assets before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a smooth transition regression (STR) to jointly test the hedging properties of Bitcoin in normal conditions and Bitcoin's safe-haven properties in extreme stock market conditions. Findings Highlighting the results, the authors show that Bitcoin is able to provide safe-haven feature during the COVID-19 pandemic period while Bitcoin serves as a hedge tool in the pre-COVID-19 pandemic period. The findings also show that the prowess of the safe-haven/hedge nature is sensitive to the type of the asset market and the time horizon when switching from daily to weekly frequency data. Originality/value This is one of the first studies that conduct a combined analysis of the safe-haven and hedging capabilities of Bitcoin against several asset classes using an STR method. This study uses the longest sample period to yet, allowing researchers to examine Bitcoin's safe-haven and hedging features both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The development of hedging strategies using commodity and cryptocurrency has been a topic of academic and practical interest. An optimal strategy increases the efficiency of risk management and minimizes the costs of hedging. This paper examines time-varying optimal hedging ratios for the ASEAN-5 stock market, hedged with gold and bitcoin. The best hedging instrument was determined using regression and DCC-GARCH model. The analyses resulted in hedge effectiveness criteria. The daily data covered the period from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2021. The findings were robust to the distribution assumption and to the use of DCC-GARCH model in examining different refit. Finally, this study provides an invaluable starting point to examine the dynamic hedging.
Miriam Sosa, Edgar Ortiz, Alejandra Cabello Rosales
Purpose The purpose of this research is to analyze the Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) long memory and conditional volatility. Design/methodology/approach The empirical approach includes ARFIMA-HYGARCH and ARFIMA-FIGARCH, both models under Student‘s t -distribution, during the period (ETH: November 9, 2017 to November 25, 2021 and BTC: September 17, 2014 to November 25, 2021). Findings Findings suggest that ARFIMA-HYGARCH is the best model to analyze BTC volatility, and ARFIMA-FIGARCH is the best approach to model ETH volatility. Empirical evidence also confirms the existence of long memory on returns and on BTC volatility parameters. Results evidence that the models proposed are not as suitable for modeling ETH volatility as they are for the BTC. Originality/value Findings allow to confirm the fractal market hypothesis in BTC market. The data confirm that, despite the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, the dynamics of BTC returns, and volatility maintained their patterns, i.e. the way in which they evolve, in relation to the prepandemic era, did not change, but it is rather reaffirmed. Yet, ETH conditional volatility was more affected, as it is apparently higher during Covid-19. The originality of the research lies in the focus of the analysis, the proposed methodology and the variables and periods of study.
Blockchain technology and its applications in various business domains have attracted great attention from researchers and practitioners in recent years. Finance, which is arguably the most promising and well-known application domain, has been significantly transformed into digital finance by various novel and open technological and business innovations rooted in blockchain technology, such as decentralized finance and cryptocurrency. Digital finance innovations like digital payments, crowdfunding, supply chain finance, and robo-advising have made significant progress. The main goal of this special issue is to deepen and broaden our understanding of the impacts, values, and challenges brought by blockchain technology and digital finance.
The existing studies rarely reveal the reasons for the digital currency price fluctuation from the perspective of internal interaction and contagion. Therefore, to fill this research gap, this paper comprehensively adopts the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC-) GARCH model and wavelet coherence analysis (WTC) to reveal the internal correlation and formation reasons of digital currency price fluctuations. Our research has the following findings: (1) the price fluctuations of digital currency are highly related. Through the observation of the dynamic conditional correlation coefficient graph, it is found that the price fluctuations have a strong time-varying trend, manifested as a ‘contagious’ characteristic. (2) During the outbreak of COVID-19, most digital currencies have shown positive resonance in the short, medium, and long term, suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the correlation and contagion of digital currency price fluctuations. (3) In the short term, Bitcoin is the main ‘contagious source’ of digital currency price fluctuation. But in the medium and long term, Ethereum and Ripple, which are closely related to the real economy, have a greater impact and become the new ‘contagious source’. Generally speaking, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple are the internal causes of instability in the digital currency market. Finally, based on the empirical conclusion, this paper proposes that the digital currency portfolio should be optimized to meet the investment demand; strengthen digital currency regulatory cooperation, and improve regulatory efficiency. Let the digital currency return to the ‘currency’ attribute and serve the real economy.
This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of several algorithms for predicting the close-price of various cryptocurrencies. Three algorithms employed in this comparative study were Support Vector Regression (SVR), Random Forest (RF), and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), while the three cryptocurrency datasets examined were Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. Furthermore, in the stage of the data preparation, we compared two popular data normalization methods: min-max and z-score. After examining the close-price prediction results of each approach using Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), it was revealed that the predictive model generated by the LSTM algorithm together with z-score normalization yielded the most effective results for each cryptocurrency dataset.
In 2022, with the implementation of tightening monetary policies by FOMC, US dollar is experiencing a dramatic appreciation in a very short period. Though numerous studies have demonstrated the connection between the traditional currency market, cryptocurrency market, and precious metal market, rare studies are exploring the relationships between the three markets under a special political environment. This paper selects USDCNY exchange rate, gold and silver, and bitcoin as the representatives of three markets and then tests the volatility response of return on gold & silver and return on bitcoin to the change of return on USDCNY exchange rate. By employing impulse response function and ARMA-GARCHX model, the paper verifies the change of exchange rate will exacerbate the volatility of returns on gold & silver and bitcoin significantly, which suggests high risk and uncertainty of the cryptocurrency market and precious metal market in a complex and extreme political environment. Investors and speculators should take prudent investment strategies in such environment.
Cryptocurrency is the most secure, traceable, and reliable intangible currency because it uses blockchain technology. It eliminates the middle layer of financial institutes in the traditional economic system. Because of high returns in cryptocurrencies, investors and other firms invest a lot of money. But the prices of the cryptocurrencies are uncertain. Prices of cryptocurrencies are influenced by many factors like sentiments, trading volume, and similar. Researchers are doing plenty of work to predict the accurate prices of various cryptocurrencies. However, many of these methods cannot be used in real-time. Several deep learning models such as Neural networks (NN), Long short-term memory (LSTM), and Gated recurrent unit (GRU) have been utilized by researchers for predicting the price of cryptocurrencies and yet, are unable to achieve significant results. This work combines LSTM and GRU with sentiment analysis to precisely estimate bitcoin values. We have used Root means square error (RMSE) to evaluate the model performance with and without sentiments. Empirically, we have compared the results with the other state-of-the-art models and found better results using the proposed hybrid model incorporated with sentiments.