Cryptocurrency Volatility

A Comparison of Cryptocurrency Volatility-benchmarking New and Mature Asset Classes ArXiv ID: 2404.04962 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract The paper analyzes the cryptocurrency ecosystem at both the aggregate and individual levels to understand the factors that impact future volatility. The study uses high-frequency panel data from 2020 to 2022 to examine the relationship between several market volatility drivers, such as daily leverage, signed volatility and jumps. Several known autoregressive model specifications are estimated over different market regimes, and results are compared to equity data as a reference benchmark of a more mature asset class. The panel estimations show that the positive market returns at the high-frequency level increase price volatility, contrary to what is expected from the classical financial literature. We attributed this effect to the price dynamics over the last year of the dataset (2022) by repeating the estimation on different time spans. Moreover, the positive signed volatility and negative daily leverage positively impact the cryptocurrencies’ future volatility, unlike what emerges from the same study on a cross-section of stocks. This result signals a structural difference in a nascent cryptocurrency market that has to mature yet. Further individual-level analysis confirms the findings of the panel analysis and highlights that these effects are statistically significant and commonly shared among many components in the selected universe. ...

Forecasting Bitcoin Volatility: A Comparative Analysis of Volatility Approaches ArXiv ID: 2401.02049 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract This paper conducts an extensive analysis of Bitcoin return series, with a primary focus on three volatility metrics: historical volatility (calculated as the sample standard deviation), forecasted volatility (derived from GARCH-type models), and implied volatility (computed from the emerging Bitcoin options market). These measures of volatility serve as indicators of market expectations for conditional volatility and are compared to elucidate their differences and similarities. The central finding of this study underscores a notably high expected level of volatility, both on a daily and annual basis, across all the methodologies employed. However, it’s crucial to emphasize the potential challenges stemming from suboptimal liquidity in the Bitcoin options market. These liquidity constraints may lead to discrepancies in the computed values of implied volatility, particularly in scenarios involving extreme moneyness or maturity. This analysis provides valuable insights into Bitcoin’s volatility landscape, shedding light on the unique characteristics and dynamics of this cryptocurrency within the context of financial markets. ...

The Effect of COVID-19 on Cryptocurrencies and the Stock Market Volatility – A Two-Stage DCC-EGARCH Model Analysis ArXiv ID: 2307.09137 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract This research examines the correlations between the return volatility of cryptocurrencies, global stock market indices, and the spillover effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, we employed a two-stage multivariate volatility exponential GARCH (EGARCH) model with an integrated dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) approach to measure the impact on the financial portfolio returns from 2019 to 2020. Moreover, we used value-at-risk (VaR) and value-at-risk measurements based on the Cornish-Fisher expansion (CFVaR). The empirical results show significant long- and short-term spillover effects. The two-stage multivariate EGARCH model’s results show that the conditional volatilities of both asset portfolios surge more after positive news and respond well to previous shocks. As a result, financial assets have low unconditional volatility and the lowest risk when there are no external interruptions. Despite the financial assets’ sensitivity to shocks, they exhibit some resistance to fluctuations in market confidence. The VaR performance comparison results with the assets portfolios differ. During the COVID-19 outbreak, the Dow (DJI) index reports VaR’s highest loss, followed by the S&P500. Conversely, the CFVaR reports negative risk results for the entire cryptocurrency portfolio during the pandemic, except for the Ethereum (ETH). ...