IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jimfin/v124y2022ics0261560622000365.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cryptocurrency price discrepancies under uncertainty: Evidence from COVID-19 and lockdown nexus

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Meichen
  • Qin, Cong
  • Zhang, Xiaoyu

Abstract

The past decades have witnessed recurrent price discrepancies in cryptocurrency markets across countries. In addition to prior explanations that generally attribute this phenomenon to domestic capital controls during normal periods, we provide another explanation that investors perceive cryptocurrency as an alternative (hedging) investment, especially under uncertainty. Using the emerging of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the subsequent lockdown policies implemented by a group of countries as natural experiments, we adopt a difference-in-difference framework to examine how the nexus affects Bitcoin price discrepancies. We find that price discrepancies are larger in countries with confirmed cases of COVID-19 and rigorously implementing lockdown policies. We then verify our “alternative investment” hypothesis on the mechanism by showing that countries with intensified exposure to media hype on COVID-19 topics and with more panic emotion among citizens during the pandemic generally experienced larger Bitcoin price discrepancies than their counterparts. We also find that domestic capital control, sanitary policy stringency, uncertainty aversion, individualistic culture, and governmental power could moderate the general effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Meichen & Qin, Cong & Zhang, Xiaoyu, 2022. "Cryptocurrency price discrepancies under uncertainty: Evidence from COVID-19 and lockdown nexus," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:124:y:2022:i:c:s0261560622000365
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jimonfin.2022.102633
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261560622000365
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jimonfin.2022.102633?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marie Briere & Kim Oosterlinck & Ariane Szafarz, 2015. "Virtual Currency, Tangible Return: Portfolio Diversification with Bitcoins," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 16(6), pages 365-373.
    2. Caferra, Rocco, 2020. "Good vibes only: The crypto-optimistic behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).
    3. Zhang, Dayong & Hu, Min & Ji, Qiang, 2020. "Financial markets under the global pandemic of COVID-19," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    4. Matthew Spiegel & Heather Tookes, 2021. "Business Restrictions and COVID-19 Fatalities [The immediate effect of COVID-19 policies on social distancing behavior in the United States]," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5266-5308.
    5. John M. Griffin & Amin Shams, 2020. "Is Bitcoin Really Untethered?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(4), pages 1913-1964, August.
    6. Andrés Fernández & Michael W Klein & Alessandro Rebucci & Martin Schindler & Martín Uribe, 2016. "Capital Control Measures: A New Dataset," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(3), pages 548-574, August.
    7. Mnif, Emna & Jarboui, Anis & Mouakhar, Khaireddine, 2020. "How the cryptocurrency market has performed during COVID 19? A multifractal analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    8. Emiliano S Pagnotta, 2022. "Decentralizing Money: Bitcoin Prices and Blockchain Security," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(2), pages 866-907.
    9. Ding, Wenzhi & Levine, Ross & Lin, Chen & Xie, Wensi, 2021. "Corporate immunity to the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 802-830.
    10. Raj Chetty & Adam Looney & Kory Kroft, 2009. "Salience and Taxation: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1145-1177, September.
    11. Qiu, Yue & Wang, Zongrun & Xie, Tian & Zhang, Xinyu, 2021. "Forecasting Bitcoin realized volatility by exploiting measurement error under model uncertainty," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 179-201.
    12. Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2020. "Trading and arbitrage in cryptocurrency markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100409, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Ashraf, Badar Nadeem, 2020. "Economic impact of government interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: International evidence from financial markets," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    14. Dwita Mariana, Christy & Ekaputra, Irwan Adi & Husodo, Zaäfri Ananto, 2021. "Are Bitcoin and Ethereum safe-havens for stocks during the COVID-19 pandemic?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    15. Klein, Tony & Pham Thu, Hien & Walther, Thomas, 2018. "Bitcoin is not the New Gold – A comparison of volatility, correlation, and portfolio performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 105-116.
    16. Rahman, Md Lutfur & Amin, Abu & Al Mamun, Mohammed Abdullah, 2021. "The COVID-19 outbreak and stock market reactions: Evidence from Australia," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    17. Huang, Yingying & Duan, Kun & Mishra, Tapas, 2021. "Is Bitcoin really more than a diversifier? A pre- and post-COVID-19 analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    18. Mazur, Mieszko & Dang, Man & Vega, Miguel, 2021. "COVID-19 and the march 2020 stock market crash. Evidence from S&P1500," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    19. Bouri, Elie & Molnár, Peter & Azzi, Georges & Roubaud, David & Hagfors, Lars Ivar, 2017. "On the hedge and safe haven properties of Bitcoin: Is it really more than a diversifier?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 192-198.
    20. Fahad Saleh & Wei Jiang, 2021. "Blockchain without Waste: Proof-of-Stake [Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake]," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(3), pages 1156-1190.
    21. Fernandez-Perez, Adrian & Gilbert, Aaron & Indriawan, Ivan & Nguyen, Nhut H., 2021. "COVID-19 pandemic and stock market response: A culture effect," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    22. Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2020. "Trading and arbitrage in cryptocurrency markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 293-319.
    23. Conlon, Thomas & McGee, Richard, 2020. "Safe haven or risky hazard? Bitcoin during the Covid-19 bear market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    24. Lin William Cong & Ye Li & Neng Wang, 2021. "Tokenomics: Dynamic Adoption and Valuation [The demand of liquid assets with uncertain lumpy expenditures]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(3), pages 1105-1155.
    25. Zaremba, Adam & Aharon, David Y. & Demir, Ender & Kizys, Renatas & Zawadka, Dariusz, 2021. "COVID-19, government policy responses, and stock market liquidity around the world: A note," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    26. Goodell, John W. & Goutte, Stephane, 2021. "Co-movement of COVID-19 and Bitcoin: Evidence from wavelet coherence analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    27. Raheem, Ibrahim D., 2021. "COVID-19 pandemic and the safe haven property of Bitcoin," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 370-375.
    28. Baur, Dirk G. & Dimpfl, Thomas & Kuck, Konstantin, 2018. "Bitcoin, gold and the US dollar – A replication and extension," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 103-110.
    29. Corbet, Shaen & Larkin, Charles & Lucey, Brian, 2020. "The contagion effects of the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from gold and cryptocurrencies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    30. Nikolaus Hautsch & Christoph Scheuch & Stefan Voigt, 2018. "Building Trust Takes Time: Limits to Arbitrage for Blockchain-Based Assets," Papers 1812.00595, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    31. Conghui Chen & Lanlan Liu & Ningru Zhao, 2020. "Fear Sentiment, Uncertainty, and Bitcoin Price Dynamics: The Case of COVID-19," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(10), pages 2298-2309, August.
    32. Ji, Qiang & Zhang, Dayong & Zhao, Yuqian, 2020. "Searching for safe-haven assets during the COVID-19 pandemic," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    33. Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Bouri, Elie & Roubaud, David & Kristoufek, Ladislav & Lucey, Brian, 2019. "Is Bitcoin a better safe-haven investment than gold and commodities?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 322-330.
    34. Fisman, Raymond & Lin, Hui & Sun, Cong & Wang, Yongxiang & Zhao, Daxuan, 2021. "What motivates non-democratic leadership: Evidence from COVID-19 reopenings in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    35. Ding, Haoyuan & Fan, Haichao & Lin, Shu, 2022. "COVID-19, firm exposure, and firm value: A tale of two lockdowns," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Djogbenou, Antoine & Inan, Emre & Jasiak, Joann, 2023. "Time-varying coefficient DAR model and stability measures for stablecoin prices: An application to Tether," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Huaxin Wang-Lu, 2022. "Bitcoin Returns and Public Attention to COVID-19: Do Timing and Individualism Matter?," Papers 2205.04290, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2022.
    3. Lee, Kangsan & Jeong, Daeyoung, 2023. "Too much is too bad: The effect of media coverage on the price volatility of cryptocurrencies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    4. Jinxin Cui & Aktham Maghyereh, 2022. "Time–frequency co-movement and risk connectedness among cryptocurrencies: new evidence from the higher-order moments before and during the COVID-19 pandemic," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-56, December.
    5. Ştefan Cristian Gherghina & Liliana Nicoleta Simionescu, 2023. "Exploring the asymmetric effect of COVID-19 pandemic news on the cryptocurrency market: evidence from nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag approach and frequency domain causality," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-58, December.
    6. Karau, Sören, 2023. "Monetary policy and Bitcoin," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ştefan Cristian Gherghina & Liliana Nicoleta Simionescu, 2023. "Exploring the asymmetric effect of COVID-19 pandemic news on the cryptocurrency market: evidence from nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag approach and frequency domain causality," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-58, December.
    2. Ben Khelifa, Soumaya & Guesmi, Khaled & Urom, Christian, 2021. "Exploring the relationship between cryptocurrencies and hedge funds during COVID-19 crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Ihsan Erdem Kayral & Ahmed Jeribi & Sahar Loukil, 2023. "Are Bitcoin and Gold a Safe Haven during COVID-19 and the 2022 Russia–Ukraine War?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-22, April.
    4. Huang, Yingying & Duan, Kun & Mishra, Tapas, 2021. "Is Bitcoin really more than a diversifier? A pre- and post-COVID-19 analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    5. Khaki, Audil & Prasad, Mason & Al-Mohamad, Somar & Bakry, Walid & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2023. "Re-evaluating portfolio diversification and design using cryptocurrencies: Are decentralized cryptocurrencies enough?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Apergis, Nicholas, 2022. "COVID-19 and cryptocurrency volatility: Evidence from asymmetric modelling," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    7. Yue, Yao & Li, Xuerong & Zhang, Dingxuan & Wang, Shouyang, 2021. "How cryptocurrency affects economy? A network analysis using bibliometric methods," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    8. Wasiuzzaman, Shaista & Haji Abdul Rahman, Hajah Siti Wardah, 2021. "Performance of gold-backed cryptocurrencies during the COVID-19 crisis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    9. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2021. "Who should be afraid of infections? Pandemic exposure and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    10. Iqbal, Najaf & Fareed, Zeeshan & Wan, Guangcai & Shahzad, Farrukh, 2021. "Asymmetric nexus between COVID-19 outbreak in the world and cryptocurrency market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    11. Zaremba, Adam & Kizys, Renatas & Tzouvanas, Panagiotis & Aharon, David Y. & Demir, Ender, 2021. "The quest for multidimensional financial immunity to the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from international stock markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    12. Duan, Kun & Gao, Yang & Mishra, Tapas & Satchell, Stephen, 2023. "Efficiency dynamics across segmented Bitcoin Markets: Evidence from a decomposition strategy," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    13. Hsu, Shu-Han & Sheu, Chwen & Yoon, Jiho, 2021. "Risk spillovers between cryptocurrencies and traditional currencies and gold under different global economic conditions," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    14. Jiang, Yonghong & Wu, Lanxin & Tian, Gengyu & Nie, He, 2021. "Do cryptocurrencies hedge against EPU and the equity market volatility during COVID-19? – New evidence from quantile coherency analysis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    15. Diniz-Maganini, Natalia & Diniz, Eduardo H. & Rasheed, Abdul A., 2021. "Bitcoin’s price efficiency and safe haven properties during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    16. Serdar Neslihanoglu, 2021. "Linearity extensions of the market model: a case of the top 10 cryptocurrency prices during the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-27, December.
    17. Noman, Abu Hanifa Md & Karim, Muhammad Mahmudul & Hassan, Mohammad Kabir & Khan, Muhammad Asif & Pervin, Sajeda, 2023. "COVID-19 pandemic and the dynamics of major investable assets: What gives shelter to investors?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 14-30.
    18. Guo, Xiaochun & Lu, Fengbin & Wei, Yunjie, 2021. "Capture the contagion network of bitcoin – Evidence from pre and mid COVID-19," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    19. Syuhada, Khreshna & Hakim, Arief & Suprijanto, Djoko & Muchtadi-Alamsyah, Intan & Arbi, Lukman, 2022. "Is Tether a safe haven of safe haven amid COVID-19? An assessment against Bitcoin and oil using improved measures of risk," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    20. Zhou, Yang & Xie, Chi & Wang, Gang-Jin & Zhu, You & Uddin, Gazi Salah, 2023. "Analysing and forecasting co-movement between innovative and traditional financial assets based on complex network and machine learning," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price discrepancies; Bitcoin; Uncertainty; COVID-19; Investor sentiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:124:y:2022:i:c:s0261560622000365. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30443 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.