IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v72y2025ics154461232401599x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transition to proof-of-stake and informed trading

Author

Listed:
  • Choi, Hyung-Eun

Abstract

Using the Ethereum Merge upgrade — a transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) — as a natural experiment, this study identifies a cooperation channel driven by informed PoS validators, in contrast to the energy-intensive competition among PoW miners. We document that PoS achieves more efficient consensus through shorter block times and higher transaction throughput, and find increased informed trading post-Merge. Our findings suggest that PoS achieves enhanced economic efficiency through informed validator cooperation and stake value maximization.

Suggested Citation

  • Choi, Hyung-Eun, 2025. "Transition to proof-of-stake and informed trading," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:72:y:2025:i:c:s154461232401599x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2024.106570
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S154461232401599X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2024.106570?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. Lin William Cong & Zhiguo He & Jiasun Li & Wei Jiang, 2021. "Decentralized Mining in Centralized Pools [Concentrating on the fall of the labor share]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(3), pages 1191-1235.
    2. Lee, Charles M C & Ready, Mark J, 1991. "Inferring Trade Direction from Intraday Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 733-746, June.
    3. Easley, David & O'Hara, Maureen, 1987. "Price, trade size, and information in securities markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 69-90, September.
    4. Duarte, Jefferson & Hu, Edwin & Young, Lance, 2020. "A comparison of some structural models of private information arrival," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 795-815.
    5. Bruno Biais & Christophe Bisière & Matthieu Bouvard & Catherine Casamatta, 2019. "The Blockchain Folk Theorem," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1662-1715.
    6. Pennec, Guénolé Le & Fiedler, Ingo & Ante, Lennart, 2021. "Wash trading at cryptocurrency exchanges," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    7. Fahad Saleh & Wei Jiang, 2021. "Blockchain without Waste: Proof-of-Stake [Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(3), pages 1156-1190.
    8. Elie Kapengut & Bruce Mizrach, 2023. "An Event Study of the Ethereum Transition to Proof-of-Stake," Commodities, MDPI, vol. 2(2), pages 1-15, March.
    9. Delgado-Mohatar, Oscar & Felis-Rota, Marta & Fernández-Herraiz, Carlos, 2019. "The Bitcoin mining breakdown: Is mining still profitable?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    10. Jain, Archana & Jain, Chinmay & Krystyniak, Karolina, 2023. "Blockchain transaction fee and Ethereum Merge," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PC).
    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. Auer, Raphael & Monnet, Cyril & Shin, Hyun Song, 2025. "Distributed ledgers and the governance of money," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    2. Hinzen, Franz J. & John, Kose & Saleh, Fahad, 2022. "Bitcoin’s limited adoption problem," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 347-369.
    3. Ferreira, Daniel & Li, Jin & Nikolowa, Radoslawa, 2023. "Corporate capture of blockchain governance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115618, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Michael Sockin & Wei Xiong, 2021. "A Model of Cryptocurrencies," Working Papers 2021-67, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    5. Vincent Bogousslavsky & Vyacheslav Fos & Dmitriy Muravyev, 2024. "Informed Trading Intensity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(2), pages 903-948, April.
    6. Sun, Yuxin & Ibikunle, Gbenga, 2017. "Informed trading and the price impact of block trades: A high frequency trading analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 114-129.
    7. Chang, Sanders S. & Wang, F. Albert, 2015. "Adverse selection and the presence of informed trading," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 19-33.
    8. Bruno, August & Weber, Paige & Yates, Andrew J., 2023. "Can Bitcoin mining increase renewable electricity capacity?," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    9. Hanna Halaburda & Guillaume Haeringer & Joshua Gans & Neil Gandal, 2022. "The Microeconomics of Cryptocurrencies," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 971-1013, September.
    10. Richard K. Lyons, 1996. "Foreign Exchange Volume: Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing?," NBER Chapters, in: The Microstructure of Foreign Exchange Markets, pages 183-208, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Malay K. Dey & B. Radhakrishna (Radha), 2007. "Who Trades Around Earnings Announcements? Evidence from TORQ Data," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1‐2), pages 269-291, January.
    12. Simplice A. Asongu & Nicholas M. Odhiambo, 2023. "Female unemployment, mobile money innovations and doing business by females," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-26, December.
    13. Alexander, Gordon J. & Peterson, Mark A., 2007. "An analysis of trade-size clustering and its relation to stealth trading," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 435-471, May.
    14. Meihui Guo & Yi-Ting Guo & Chi-Jeng Wang & Liang-Ching Lin, 2015. "Assessing influential trade effects via high-frequency market reactions," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(7), pages 1458-1471, July.
    15. Lof, Matthijs & van Bommel, Jos, 2023. "Asymmetric information and the distribution of trading volume," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    16. Marco Wölfle, 2009. "Information-based trade in Russia and the effects of listing abroad," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 229-262, November.
    17. Doan, Bao & Vo, Duc Hong, 2021. "Is there any information content of traded stocks in an emerging market? Evidence from Vietnam," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 78-87.
    18. Boulatov, Alex & Hatch, Brian C. & Johnson, Shane A. & Lei, Adam Y.C., 2009. "Dealer attention, the speed of quote adjustment to information, and net dealer revenue," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1531-1542, August.
    19. Soria, Jorge & Moya, Jorge & Mohazab, Amin, 2023. "Optimal mining in proof-of-work blockchain protocols," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    20. Pascual, Roberto & Escribano, Álvaro & Tapia, Mikel, 1999. "How does liquidity behave? A multidimensional analysis of NYSE stocks," DEE - Working Papers. Business Economics. WB 6433, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía de la Empresa.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Proof-of-Stake(poS); Proof-of-Work(poW); Ethereum merge; Probability of informed trading (PIN);
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • G00 - Financial Economics - - General - - - General
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    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:72:y:2025:i:c:s154461232401599x. 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.