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Bitcoin price and its marginal cost of production: support for a fundamental value

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  • Adam Hayes

Abstract

This study back-tests a marginal cost of production model proposed to value the digital currency bitcoin. Results from both conventional regression and vector autoregression (VAR) models show that the marginal cost of production plays an important role in explaining bitcoin prices, challenging recent allegations that bitcoins are essentially worthless. Even with markets pricing bitcoin in the thousands of dollars each, the valuation model seems robust. The data show that a price bubble that began in the Fall of 2017 resolved itself in early 2018, converging with the marginal cost model. This suggests that while bubbles may appear in the bitcoin market, prices will tend to this bound and not collapse to zero.

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  • Adam Hayes, 2018. "Bitcoin price and its marginal cost of production: support for a fundamental value," Papers 1805.07610, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1805.07610
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Frode Kjærland & Aras Khazal & Erlend A. Krogstad & Frans B. G. Nordstrøm & Are Oust, 2018. "An Analysis of Bitcoin’s Price Dynamics," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-18, October.
    3. 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.
    4. Bihary, Zsolt & Víg, Attila András, 2020. "Heterogén kereskedési stratégiák hatása a piaci árfolyamokra [The effect of heterogeneous commercial strategies on market exchange rates]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 688-707.
    5. Chu, Jeffrey & Chan, Stephen & Zhang, Yuanyuan, 2021. "Bitcoin versus high-performance technology stocks in diversifying against global stock market indices," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 580(C).
    6. Małgorzata Jabłczyńska & Krzysztof Kosc & Przemysław Ryś & Robert Ślepaczuk & Paweł Sakowski & Grzegorz Zakrzewski, 2018. "Why you should not invest in mining endeavour? The efficiency of BTC mining under current market conditions," Working Papers 2018-18, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    7. Troster, Victor & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Shahbaz, Muhammad & Macedo, Demian Nicolás, 2019. "Bitcoin returns and risk: A general GARCH and GAS analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 187-193.
    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. Dulani Jayasuriya Daluwathumullagamage & Alexandra Sims, 2021. "Fantastic Beasts: Blockchain Based Banking," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-43, April.
    10. 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.

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