IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/fininn/v7y2021i1d10.1186_s40854-021-00275-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The time-varying causal relationship between the Bitcoin market and internet attention

Author

Listed:
  • Xun Zhang

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

  • Fengbin Lu

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

  • Rui Tao

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

  • Shouyang Wang

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

The increasing attention on Bitcoin since 2013 prompts the issue of possible evidence for a causal relationship between the Bitcoin market and internet attention. Taking the Google search volume index as the measure of internet attention, time-varying Granger causality between the global Bitcoin market and internet attention is examined. Empirical results show a strong Granger causal relationship between internet attention and trading volume. Moreover, they indicate, beginning in early 2018, an even stronger impact of trading volume on internet attention, which is consistent with the rapid increase in Bitcoin users following the 2017 Bitcoin bubble. Although Bitcoin returns are found to strongly affect internet attention, internet attention only occasionally affects Bitcoin returns. Further investigation reveals that interactions between internet attention and returns can be amplified by extreme changes in prices, and internet attention is more likely to lead to returns during Bitcoin bubbles. These empirical findings shed light on cryptocurrency investor attention theory and imply trading strategy in Bitcoin markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Xun Zhang & Fengbin Lu & Rui Tao & Shouyang Wang, 2021. "The time-varying causal relationship between the Bitcoin market and internet attention," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-19, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:fininn:v:7:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1186_s40854-021-00275-9
    DOI: 10.1186/s40854-021-00275-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s40854-021-00275-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1186/s40854-021-00275-9?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter C. B. Phillips & Shuping Shi & Jun Yu, 2015. "Testing For Multiple Bubbles: Historical Episodes Of Exuberance And Collapse In The S&P 500," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1043-1078, November.
    2. David Garcia & Claudio Juan Tessone & Pavlin Mavrodiev & Nicolas Perony, 2014. "The digital traces of bubbles: feedback cycles between socio-economic signals in the Bitcoin economy," Papers 1408.1494, arXiv.org.
    3. Holub, Mark & Johnson, Jackie, 2019. "The impact of the Bitcoin bubble of 2017 on Bitcoin's P2P market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 357-362.
    4. Pavel Ciaian & Miroslava Rajcaniova & d’Artis Kancs, 2016. "The economics of BitCoin price formation," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(19), pages 1799-1815, April.
    5. Yechen Zhu & David Dickinson & Jianjun Li, 2017. "Erratum to: Analysis on the influence factors of Bitcoin’s price based on VEC model," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 3(1), pages 1-1, December.
    6. Jamal Bouoiyour & Refk Selmi & Aviral Kumar Tiwari & Olaolu Richard Olayeni, 2016. "What drives Bitcoin price?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(2), pages 843-850.
    7. Hong, Yongmiao, 1996. "Testing for independence between two covariance stationary time series," MPRA Paper 108731, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Lu, Feng-bin & Hong, Yong-miao & Wang, Shou-yang & Lai, Kin-keung & Liu, John, 2014. "Time-varying Granger causality tests for applications in global crude oil markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 289-298.
    9. Urquhart, Andrew, 2018. "What causes the attention of Bitcoin?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 40-44.
    10. Lin Peng & Wei Xiong & Tim Bollerslev, 2007. "Investor Attention and Time‐varying Comovements," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 13(3), pages 394-422, June.
    11. Zhang, Wei & Wang, Pengfei & Li, Xiao & Shen, Dehua, 2018. "Quantifying the cross-correlations between online searches and Bitcoin market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 509(C), pages 657-672.
    12. Peng, Lin & Xiong, Wei, 2006. "Investor attention, overconfidence and category learning," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 563-602, June.
    13. Gianna Figá-Talamanca & Marco Patacca, 2019. "Does market attention affect Bitcoin returns and volatility?," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 42(1), pages 135-155, June.
    14. David Garcia & Claudio Tessone & Pavlin Mavrodiev & Nicolas Perony, "undated". "The digital traces of bubbles: feedback cycles between socio-economic signals in the Bitcoin economy," Working Papers ETH-RC-14-001, ETH Zurich, Chair of Systems Design.
    15. Peter C.B. Phillips & Shuping Shi, 2018. "Real Time Monitoring of Asset Markets: Bubbles and Crises," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2152, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    16. Hervé, Fabrice & Zouaoui, Mohamed & Belvaux, Bertrand, 2019. "Noise traders and smart money: Evidence from online searches," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 141-149.
    17. Eom, Cheoljun & Kaizoji, Taisei & Kang, Sang Hoon & Pichl, Lukas, 2019. "Bitcoin and investor sentiment: Statistical characteristics and predictability," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 514(C), pages 511-521.
    18. Ibikunle, Gbenga & McGroarty, Frank & Rzayev, Khaladdin, 2020. "More heat than light: Investor attention and bitcoin price discovery," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    19. Philippas, Dionisis & Rjiba, Hatem & Guesmi, Khaled & Goutte, Stéphane, 2019. "Media attention and Bitcoin prices," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 37-43.
    20. Yukun Liu & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2018. "Risks and Returns of Cryptocurrency," NBER Working Papers 24877, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Jamal Bouoiyour & Refk Selmi, 2015. "What Does Bitcoin Look Like?," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 16(2), pages 449-492, November.
    22. Zhi Da & Joseph Engelberg & Pengjie Gao, 2011. "In Search of Attention," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1461-1499, October.
    23. Wei Zhang & Pengfei Wang, 2020. "Investor attention and the pricing of cryptocurrency market," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 445-468, July.
    24. Su, Chi-Wei & Li, Zheng-Zheng & Tao, Ran & Si, Deng-Kui, 2018. "Testing for multiple bubbles in bitcoin markets: A generalized sup ADF test," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 56-63.
    25. Peter C. B. Phillips & Shuping Shi & Jun Yu, 2015. "Testing For Multiple Bubbles: Historical Episodes Of Exuberance And Collapse In The S&P 500," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56, pages 1043-1078, November.
    26. Gianna Figà-Talamanca & Marco Patacca, 2020. "Disentangling the relationship between Bitcoin and market attention measures," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 47(1), pages 71-91, March.
    27. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2008. "All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 785-818, April.
    28. Dastgir, Shabbir & Demir, Ender & Downing, Gareth & Gozgor, Giray & Lau, Chi Keung Marco, 2019. "The causal relationship between Bitcoin attention and Bitcoin returns: Evidence from the Copula-based Granger causality test," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 160-164.
    29. Geuder, Julian & Kinateder, Harald & Wagner, Niklas F., 2019. "Cryptocurrencies as financial bubbles: The case of Bitcoin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    30. Min Xu & Xingtong Chen & Gang Kou, 2019. "A systematic review of blockchain," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 5(1), pages 1-14, December.
    31. Muhammad Ali Nasir & Toan Luu Duc Huynh & Sang Phu Nguyen & Duy Duong, 2019. "Forecasting cryptocurrency returns and volume using search engines," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 5(1), pages 1-13, December.
    32. Feng, Wenjun & Wang, Yiming & Zhang, Zhengjun, 2018. "Informed trading in the Bitcoin market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 63-70.
    33. Aalborg, Halvor Aarhus & Molnár, Peter & de Vries, Jon Erik, 2019. "What can explain the price, volatility and trading volume of Bitcoin?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 255-265.
    34. Yechen Zhu & David Dickinson & Jianjun Li, 2017. "Analysis on the influence factors of Bitcoin’s price based on VEC model," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 3(1), pages 1-13, December.
    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. Fathin Faizah Said & Raja Solan Somasuntharam & Mohd Ridzwan Yaakub & Tamat Sarmidi, 2023. "Impact of Google searches and social media on digital assets’ volatility," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, December.
    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. Caporina, Massimiliano & Costola, Michele, 2021. "Time-varying granger causality tests for applications in global crude oil markets: A study on the DCC-MGARCH Hong test," SAFE Working Paper Series 324, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    4. Festus Victor Bekun & Abdulkareem Alhassan & Ilhan Ozturk & Obadiah Jonathan Gimba, 2022. "Explosivity and Time-Varying Granger Causality: Evidence from the Bubble Contagion Effect of COVID-19-Induced Uncertainty on Manufacturing Job Postings in the United States," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(24), pages 1-17, December.
    5. Wenwen Liu & Jinyu Yang & Jingrui Chen & Lei Xu, 2023. "How Social-Network Attention and Sentiment of Investors Affect Commodity Futures Market Returns: New Evidence From China," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, January.
    6. Yu Song & Bo Chen & Xin-Yi Wang, 2023. "Cryptocurrency technology revolution: are Bitcoin prices and terrorist attacks related?," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-20, December.
    7. Francisco Javier García-Corral & José Antonio Cordero-García & Jaime de Pablo-Valenciano & Juan Uribe-Toril, 2022. "A bibliometric review of cryptocurrencies: how have they grown?," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-31, December.
    8. Li, Yi & Zhang, Wei & Urquhart, Andrew & Wang, Pengfei, 2022. "The role of media coverage in the bubble formation: Evidence from the Bitcoin market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    9. Kou, Gang & Yüksel, Serhat & Dinçer, Hasan, 2022. "Inventive problem-solving map of innovative carbon emission strategies for solar energy-based transportation investment projects," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 311(C).
    10. Caporin, Massimiliano & Costola, Michele, 2022. "Time-varying Granger causality tests in the energy markets: A study on the DCC-MGARCH Hong test," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(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. Ahmed, Walid M.A., 2022. "Robust drivers of Bitcoin price movements: An extreme bounds analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    2. Andrea Flori, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies In Finance: Review And Applications," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(05), pages 1-22, August.
    3. Li, Yi & Zhang, Wei & Urquhart, Andrew & Wang, Pengfei, 2022. "The role of media coverage in the bubble formation: Evidence from the Bitcoin market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Aurelio F. Bariviera & Ignasi Merediz‐Solà, 2021. "Where Do We Stand In Cryptocurrencies Economic Research? A Survey Based On Hybrid Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 377-407, April.
    5. Panagiotidis, Theodore & Stengos, Thanasis & Vravosinos, Orestis, 2019. "The effects of markets, uncertainty and search intensity on bitcoin returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 220-242.
    6. Dunbar, Kwamie & Owusu-Amoako, Johnson, 2023. "Predictability of crypto returns: The impact of trading behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    7. Alessandra Cretarola & Gianna Figà-Talamanca, 2021. "Detecting bubbles in Bitcoin price dynamics via market exuberance," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 299(1), pages 459-479, April.
    8. Gaies, Brahim & Nakhli, Mohamed Sahbi & Sahut, Jean Michel & Guesmi, Khaled, 2021. "Is Bitcoin rooted in confidence? – Unraveling the determinants of globalized digital currencies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    9. 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.
    10. Ozdamar, Melisa & Sensoy, Ahmet & Akdeniz, Levent, 2022. "Retail vs institutional investor attention in the cryptocurrency market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    11. Dias, Ishanka K. & Fernando, J.M. Ruwani & Fernando, P. Narada D., 2022. "Does investor sentiment predict bitcoin return and volatility? A quantile regression approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. 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.
    13. Ibikunle, Gbenga & McGroarty, Frank & Rzayev, Khaladdin, 2020. "More heat than light: Investor attention and bitcoin price discovery," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    14. Chen, Conghui & Liu, Lanlan, 2022. "How effective is China's cryptocurrency trading ban?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB).
    15. Burcu Kapar & Jose Olmo, 2021. "Analysis of Bitcoin prices using market and sentiment variables," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 45-63, January.
    16. 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.
    17. Zheng-Zheng Li & Ran Tao & Chi-Wei Su & Oana-Ramona Lobonţ, 2019. "Does Bitcoin bubble burst?," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 91-105, January.
    18. Haffar, Adlane & Le Fur, Éric, 2022. "Time-varying dependence of Bitcoin," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 211-220.
    19. Figà-Talamanca, Gianna & Focardi, Sergio & Patacca, Marco, 2021. "Regime switches and commonalities of the cryptocurrencies asset class," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    20. Helder Miguel Correia Virtuoso Sebastião & Paulo José Osório Rupino Da Cunha & Pedro Manuel Cortesão Godinho, 2021. "Cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Overview and future perspectives," International Journal of Economics and Business Research, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 21(3), pages 305-342.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bitcoin; Internet attention; Google trends; Time-varying granger causality; Multiple bubbles test;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • C15 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Statistical Simulation Methods: General

    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:spr:fininn:v:7:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1186_s40854-021-00275-9. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.