IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jforec/v4y2022i4p41-766d922336.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forecasting Bitcoin Spikes: A GARCH-SVM Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Theophilos Papadimitriou

    (Department of Economics, Democritus University of Thrace, 69100 Komotini, Greece)

  • Periklis Gogas

    (Department of Economics, Democritus University of Thrace, 69100 Komotini, Greece)

  • Athanasios Fotios Athanasiou

    (Department of Economics, Democritus University of Thrace, 69100 Komotini, Greece)

Abstract

This study aims to forecast extreme fluctuations of Bitcoin returns. Bitcoin is the first decentralized and the largest, in terms of capitalization, cryptocurrency. A well-timed and precise forecast of extreme changes in Bitcoin returns is key to market participants since they may trigger large-scale selling or buying strategies that may crucially impact the cryptocurrency markets. We term the instances of extreme Bitcoin movement as ‘spikes’. In this paper, spikes are defined as the returns instances that outreach a two-standard deviations band around the mean value. Instead of the unconditional historic standard deviation that is usually used, in this paper, we utilized a GARCH(p,q) model to derive the conditional standard deviation. We claim that the conditional standard deviation is a more suitable measure of on-the-spot risk than the overall standard deviation. The forecasting operation was performed using the support vector machines (SVM) methodology from machine learning. The most accurate forecasting model that we created reached 79.17% out-of-sample forecasting accuracy regarding the spikes cases and 87.43% regarding the non-spikes ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Theophilos Papadimitriou & Periklis Gogas & Athanasios Fotios Athanasiou, 2022. "Forecasting Bitcoin Spikes: A GARCH-SVM Approach," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-15, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jforec:v:4:y:2022:i:4:p:41-766:d:922336
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9394/4/4/41/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9394/4/4/41/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Kajtazi, Anton & Moro, Andrea, 2019. "The role of bitcoin in well diversified portfolios: A comparative global study," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 143-157.
    3. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    4. Guesmi, Khaled & Saadi, Samir & Abid, Ilyes & Ftiti, Zied, 2019. "Portfolio diversification with virtual currency: Evidence from bitcoin," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 431-437.
    5. Engle, Robert F, 1982. "Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 987-1007, July.
    6. Catania, Leopoldo & Grassi, Stefano, 2022. "Forecasting cryptocurrency volatility," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 878-894.
    7. Wei Zhang & Pengfei Wang & Xiao Li & Dehua Shen, 2018. "Some stylized facts of the cryptocurrency market," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(55), pages 5950-5965, November.
    8. Bedi, Prateek & Nashier, Tripti, 2020. "On the investment credentials of Bitcoin: A cross-currency perspective," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    9. Roy Cerqueti & Massimiliano Giacalone & Raffaele Mattera, 2020. "Skewed non-Gaussian GARCH models for cryptocurrencies volatility modelling," Papers 2004.11674, arXiv.org.
    10. Leopoldo Catania & Stefano Grassi & Francesco Ravazzolo, 2018. "Predicting the Volatility of Cryptocurrency Time�Series," Working Papers No 3/2018, Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School.
    11. Lahmiri, Salim & Bekiros, Stelios, 2019. "Cryptocurrency forecasting with deep learning chaotic neural networks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 35-40.
    12. Periklis Gogas & Apostolos Serletis, 2009. "Forecasting in inefficient commodity markets," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(4), pages 383-392, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Achraf Ghorbel & Ahmed Jeribi, 2021. "Investigating the relationship between volatilities of cryptocurrencies and other financial assets," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 44(2), pages 817-843, December.
    2. Flori, Andrea, 2019. "News and subjective beliefs: A Bayesian approach to Bitcoin investments," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 336-356.
    3. Ángeles Cebrián-Hernández & Enrique Jiménez-Rodríguez, 2021. "Modeling of the Bitcoin Volatility through Key Financial Environment Variables: An Application of Conditional Correlation MGARCH Models," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-16, January.
    4. Nedved, Martin & Kristoufek, Ladislav, 2023. "Safe havens for Bitcoin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    5. 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).
    6. Trucíos, Carlos, 2019. "Forecasting Bitcoin risk measures: A robust approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 836-847.
    7. Palazzi, Rafael Baptista & Júnior, Gerson de Souza Raimundo & Klotzle, Marcelo Cabus, 2021. "The dynamic relationship between bitcoin and the foreign exchange market: A nonlinear approach to test causality between bitcoin and currencies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    8. Dirk G. Baur & Thomas Dimpfl, 2021. "The volatility of Bitcoin and its role as a medium of exchange and a store of value," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(5), pages 2663-2683, November.
    9. Bedi, Prateek & Nashier, Tripti, 2020. "On the investment credentials of Bitcoin: A cross-currency perspective," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    10. Parthajit Kayal & Purnima Rohilla, 2021. "Bitcoin in the economics and finance literature: a survey," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(7), pages 1-21, July.
    11. Moreno, David & Antoli, Marcos & Quintana, David, 2022. "Benefits of investing in cryptocurrencies when liquidity is a factor," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    12. Sercan Demiralay & Selçuk Bayracı, 2021. "Should stock investors include cryptocurrencies in their portfolios after all? Evidence from a conditional diversification benefits measure," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 6188-6204, October.
    13. 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).
    14. Panayiotis Theodossiou & Polina Ellina & Christos S. Savva, 2022. "Stochastic properties and pricing of bitcoin using a GJR-GARCH model with conditional skewness and kurtosis components," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 695-716, August.
    15. Nikolaos A. Kyriazis, 2021. "A Survey on Volatility Fluctuations in the Decentralized Cryptocurrency Financial Assets," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-46, June.
    16. Abdulnasser Hatemi-J & Mohamed A. Hajji & Elie Bouri & Rangan Gupta, 2022. "The Benefits of Diversification Between Bitcoin, Bonds, Equities and the US Dollar: A Matter of Portfolio Construction," Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research (APJOR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 39(04), pages 1-11, August.
    17. Baur, Dirk G. & Hoang, Lai T. & Hossain, Md Zakir, 2022. "Is Bitcoin a hedge? How extreme volatility can destroy the hedge property," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    18. Zhou, Siwen, 2018. "Exploring the Driving Forces of the Bitcoin Exchange Rate Dynamics: An EGARCH Approach," MPRA Paper 89445, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Maurice Omane-Adjepong & Imhotep Paul Alagidede, 2020. "Dynamic Linkages and Economic Role of Leading Cryptocurrencies in an Emerging Market," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 27(4), pages 537-585, December.
    20. Wen, Fenghua & Tong, Xi & Ren, Xiaohang, 2022. "Gold or Bitcoin, which is the safe haven during the COVID-19 pandemic?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).

    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:gam:jforec:v:4:y:2022:i:4:p:41-766:d:922336. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.