IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v38y2021ics1544612319311286.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding Bitcoin liquidity

Author

Listed:
  • Scharnowski, Stefan

Abstract

This paper analyzes the evolution of Bitcoin liquidity and its determinants. Using a new methodology to identify the most liquid exchange at each point in time, I find that driving factors behind the overall increases in liquidity and trading activity come mostly from within the Bitcoin network. While the state of the US economy only weakly influences Bitcoin liquidity, there is some evidence that gold and Bitcoin are perceived as complements. Moreover, patterns in market making and trading are consistent with the activity of both institutional and retail traders.

Suggested Citation

  • Scharnowski, Stefan, 2021. "Understanding Bitcoin liquidity," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:38:y:2021:i:c:s1544612319311286
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2020.101477
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612319311286
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2020.101477?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. 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.
    2. Shen, Dehua & Urquhart, Andrew & Wang, Pengfei, 2019. "Does twitter predict Bitcoin?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 118-122.
    3. Baur, Dirk G. & Cahill, Daniel & Godfrey, Keith & (Frank) Liu, Zhangxin, 2019. "Bitcoin time-of-day, day-of-week and month-of-year effects in returns and trading volume," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 78-92.
    4. Tarun Chordia & Richard Roll & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2001. "Market Liquidity and Trading Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 501-530, April.
    5. Hio Loi, 2018. "The Liquidity of Bitcoin," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(1), pages 13-22, January.
    6. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    7. Demir, Ender & Gozgor, Giray & Lau, Chi Keung Marco & Vigne, Samuel A., 2018. "Does economic policy uncertainty predict the Bitcoin returns? An empirical investigation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 145-149.
    8. Dick-Nielsen, Jens & Feldhütter, Peter & Lando, David, 2012. "Corporate bond liquidity before and after the onset of the subprime crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(3), pages 471-492.
    9. Huang, Roger D. & Stoll, Hans R., 1996. "Dealer versus auction markets: A paired comparison of execution costs on NASDAQ and the NYSE," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 313-357, July.
    10. Nina Karnaukh & Angelo Ranaldo & Paul Söderlind, 2015. "Understanding FX Liquidity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(11), pages 3073-3108.
    11. Balcilar, Mehmet & Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan & Roubaud, David, 2017. "Can volume predict Bitcoin returns and volatility? A quantiles-based approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 74-81.
    12. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    13. Sensoy, Ahmet, 2019. "The inefficiency of Bitcoin revisited: A high-frequency analysis with alternative currencies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 68-73.
    14. Gandal, Neil & Hamrick, JT & Moore, Tyler & Oberman, Tali, 2018. "Price manipulation in the Bitcoin ecosystem," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 86-96.
    15. Bouri, Elie & Lau, Chi Keung Marco & Lucey, Brian & Roubaud, David, 2019. "Trading volume and the predictability of return and volatility in the cryptocurrency market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 340-346.
    16. Dyhrberg, Anne Haubo, 2016. "Hedging capabilities of bitcoin. Is it the virtual gold?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 139-144.
    17. Brauneis, Alexander & Mestel, Roland, 2018. "Price discovery of cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin and beyond," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 58-61.
    18. Smales, L.A., 2019. "Bitcoin as a safe haven: Is it even worth considering?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 385-393.
    19. 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.
    20. Koutmos, Dimitrios, 2018. "Liquidity uncertainty and Bitcoin’s market microstructure," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 97-101.
    21. 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.
    22. Davies, Ryan J. & Kim, Sang Soo, 2009. "Using matched samples to test for differences in trade execution costs," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 173-202, May.
    23. Kim, Thomas, 2017. "On the transaction cost of Bitcoin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 300-305.
    24. Alaoui, Marwane El & Bouri, Elie & Roubaud, David, 2019. "Bitcoin price–volume: A multifractal cross-correlation approach," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    25. Dyhrberg, Anne H. & Foley, Sean & Svec, Jiri, 2018. "How investible is Bitcoin? Analyzing the liquidity and transaction costs of Bitcoin markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 140-143.
    26. Corbet, Shaen & Meegan, Andrew & Larkin, Charles & Lucey, Brian & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2018. "Exploring the dynamic relationships between cryptocurrencies and other financial assets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 28-34.
    27. Wei, Wang Chun, 2018. "Liquidity and market efficiency in cryptocurrencies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 21-24.
    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. Jana, Rabin K. & Ghosh, Indranil & Wallin, Martin W., 2022. "Taming energy and electronic waste generation in bitcoin mining: Insights from Facebook prophet and deep neural network," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    2. Karmakar, Sayar & Demirer, Riza & Gupta, Rangan, 2021. "Bitcoin mining activity and volatility dynamics in the power market," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    3. Samet Gunay & Kerem Kaskaloglu & Shahnawaz Muhammed, 2021. "Bitcoin and Fiat Currency Interactions: Surprising Results from Asian Giants," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-18, June.
    4. Brauneis, Alexander & Mestel, Roland & Riordan, Ryan & Theissen, Erik, 2022. "Bitcoin unchained: Determinants of cryptocurrency exchange liquidity," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 106-122.
    5. Mudassar Hasan & Muhammad Abubakr Naeem & Muhammad Arif & Syed Jawad Hussain Shahzad & Xuan Vinh Vo, 2022. "Liquidity connectedness in cryptocurrency market," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-25, December.
    6. Fernandes, Leonardo H.S. & Bouri, Elie & Silva, José W.L. & Bejan, Lucian & de Araujo, Fernando H.A., 2022. "The resilience of cryptocurrency market efficiency to COVID-19 shock," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 607(C).
    7. Liebi, Luca J., 2022. "Is there a value premium in cryptoasset markets?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    8. Ali, Fahad & Khurram, Muhammad Usman & Sensoy, Ahmet & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2024. "Green cryptocurrencies and portfolio diversification in the era of greener paths," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    9. Alexakis, Christos & Anselmi, Giulio & Petrella, Giovanni, 2024. "Flight to cryptos: Evidence on the use of cryptocurrencies in times of geopolitical tensions," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PA), pages 498-523.
    10. Arun Narayanasamy & Humnath Panta & Rohit Agarwal, 2023. "Relations among Bitcoin Futures, Bitcoin Spot, Investor Attention, and Sentiment," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-24, November.
    11. 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).
    12. Sharif, Arshian & Brahim, Mariem & Dogan, Eyup & Tzeremes, Panayiotis, 2023. "Analysis of the spillover effects between green economy, clean and dirty cryptocurrencies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    13. Scharnowski, Stefan & Shi, Yanghua, 2024. "Intraday herding and attention around the clock," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(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. 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.
    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. 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).
    4. Corbet, Shaen & Lucey, Brian & Urquhart, Andrew & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies as a financial asset: A systematic analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 182-199.
    5. 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.
    6. Cynthia Weiyi Cai & Rui Xue & Bi Zhou, 2023. "Cryptocurrency puzzles: a comprehensive review and re-introduction," Journal of Accounting Literature, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 46(1), pages 26-50, June.
    7. 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).
    8. 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.
    9. ORĂȘTEAN Ramona & MĂRGINEAN Silvia Cristina & SAVA Raluca, 2019. "Bitcoin In The Scientific Literature – A Bibliometric Study," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 14(3), pages 160-174, December.
    10. 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).
    11. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Narayan, Seema & Eki Rahman, R. & Setiawan, Iwan, 2019. "Bitcoin price growth and Indonesia's monetary system," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 364-376.
    12. Urom, Christian & Abid, Ilyes & Guesmi, Khaled & Chevallier, Julien, 2020. "Quantile spillovers and dependence between Bitcoin, equities and strategic commodities," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 230-258.
    13. Choi, Sangyup & Shin, Junhyeok, 2022. "Bitcoin: An inflation hedge but not a safe haven," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB).
    14. Constandina Koki & Stefanos Leonardos & Georgios Piliouras, 2019. "A Peek into the Unobservable: Hidden States and Bayesian Inference for the Bitcoin and Ether Price Series," Papers 1909.10957, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2021.
    15. Duc Huynh, Toan Luu & Burggraf, Tobias & Wang, Mei, 2020. "Gold, platinum, and expected Bitcoin returns," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    16. Antonakakis, Nikolaos & Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Gabauer, David, 2019. "Cryptocurrency market contagion: Market uncertainty, market complexity, and dynamic portfolios," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 37-51.
    17. Sangyup Choi & Junhyeok Shin, 2020. "Brave New World? Bitcoin is not the New Gold: Understanding Cryptocurrency Price Dynamics," Working papers 2020rwp-167, Yonsei University, Yonsei Economics Research Institute.
    18. Mudassar Hasan & Muhammad Abubakr Naeem & Muhammad Arif & Syed Jawad Hussain Shahzad & Xuan Vinh Vo, 2022. "Liquidity connectedness in cryptocurrency market," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-25, December.
    19. 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.
    20. Ahmed, Walid M.A., 2021. "Stock market reactions to upside and downside volatility of Bitcoin: A quantile analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cryptocurrency; Bitcoin; Liquidity; Market microstructure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:finlet:v:38:y:2021:i:c:s1544612319311286. 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/frl .

    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.