IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfin/v93y2024ics1042443124000775.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do infectious diseases explain Bitcoin price Fluctuations?

Author

Listed:
  • Aliu, Florin

Abstract

This study examines Bitcoin price movements from an infectious disease perspective. The author compares the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic with the Bitcoin price explosion and adopts the SIR epidemiological model. The SIR model operates by categorizing the population of individuals into susceptible (S), infected (I), and removed (R). In the case of Bitcoin, open wallets represent the susceptible population, and the infection starts with a single individual. After conducting four estimation trials, the model that uses the recovery rate derived from the Bitcoin price downtrend and the infection rate from the upward trend has the highest accuracy. The estimation deviates from the Bitcoin price explosions by only three days. Previous studies commonly use faster-than-exponential growth or stationarity tests to identify bubble formations. This paper introduces a novel approach that employs epidemiological models to analyze Bitcoin’s explosive price behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Aliu, Florin, 2024. "Do infectious diseases explain Bitcoin price Fluctuations?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfin:v:93:y:2024:i:c:s1042443124000775
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2024.102011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1042443124000775
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intfin.2024.102011?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. Podhorsky, Andrea, 2024. "Bursting the bitcoin bubble: Do market prices reflect fundamental bitcoin value?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Xiong, Jinwu & Liu, Qing & Zhao, Lei, 2020. "A new method to verify Bitcoin bubbles: Based on the production cost," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    3. Kaiser, Lars & Stöckl, Sebastian, 2020. "Cryptocurrencies: Herding and the transfer currency," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    4. Xu, Lei & Kinkyo, Takuji, 2023. "Hedging effectiveness of bitcoin and gold: Evidence from G7 stock markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    5. Puput Tri Komalasari & Marwan Asri & Bernardinus M. Purwanto & Bowo Setiyono, 2022. "Herding behaviour in the capital market: What do we know and what is next?," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 72(3), pages 745-787, September.
    6. Sean Foley & Jonathan R Karlsen & Tālis J Putniņš, 2019. "Sex, Drugs, and Bitcoin: How Much Illegal Activity Is Financed through Cryptocurrencies?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1798-1853.
    7. 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.
    8. Bajra, Ujkan Q. & Aliu, Florin, 2023. "Deciphering the cryptocurrency conundrum: Investigating speculative characteristics and volatility," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PC).
    9. Suardi, Sandy & Rasel, Atiqur Rahman & Liu, Bin, 2022. "On the predictive power of tweet sentiments and attention on bitcoin," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 289-301.
    10. Phillips, Peter C.B. & Shi, Shu-Ping, 2018. "Financial Bubble Implosion And Reverse Regression," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 705-753, August.
    11. Lee, Seungho & Meslmani, Nabil El & Switzer, Lorne N., 2020. "Pricing Efficiency and Arbitrage in the Bitcoin Spot and Futures Markets," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    12. Coskun, Esra Alp & Lau, Chi Keung Marco & Kahyaoglu, Hakan, 2020. "Uncertainty and herding behavior: evidence from cryptocurrencies," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    13. Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Anas, Muhammad & Bouri, Elie, 2022. "Price explosiveness in cryptocurrencies and Elon Musk's tweets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    14. Das, Debojyoti & Le Roux, Corlise Liesl & Jana, R.K. & Dutta, Anupam, 2020. "Does Bitcoin hedge crude oil implied volatility and structural shocks? A comparison with gold, commodity and the US Dollar," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    15. Shu, Min & Zhu, Wei, 2020. "Real-time prediction of Bitcoin bubble crashes," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 548(C).
    16. Florin Aliu & Alban Asllani & Simona Hašková, 2023. "The impact of bitcoin on gold, the volatility index (VIX), and dollar index (USDX): analysis based on VAR, SVAR, and wavelet coherence," Studies in Economics and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 41(1), pages 64-87, June.
    17. Easley, David & O'Hara, Maureen & Basu, Soumya, 2019. "From mining to markets: The evolution of bitcoin transaction fees," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 91-109.
    18. Noemi Schmitt & Frank Westerhoff, 2017. "Herding behaviour and volatility clustering in financial markets," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(8), pages 1187-1203, August.
    19. Lee, Adrian D. & Li, Mengling & Zheng, Huanhuan, 2020. "Bitcoin: Speculative asset or innovative technology?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    20. Kyriazis, Nikolaos & Papadamou, Stephanos & Corbet, Shaen, 2020. "A systematic review of the bubble dynamics of cryptocurrency prices," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    21. Choi, Hyungeun, 2021. "Investor attention and bitcoin liquidity: Evidence from bitcoin tweets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    22. Duan, Kun & Gao, Yang & Mishra, Tapas & Satchell, Stephen, 2023. "Efficiency dynamics across segmented Bitcoin Markets: Evidence from a decomposition strategy," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    23. Cui, Tianxiang & Ding, Shusheng & Jin, Huan & Zhang, Yongmin, 2023. "Portfolio constructions in cryptocurrency market: A CVaR-based deep reinforcement learning approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    24. Jocelyn Grira & Sana Guizani & Ines Kahloul, 2022. "Bitcoin's hedging attributes against equity market volatility: empirical evidence during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Risk Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 23(5), pages 605-618, August.
    25. Baur, Dirk G. & Hong, KiHoon & Lee, Adrian D., 2018. "Bitcoin: Medium of exchange or speculative assets?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 177-189.
    26. 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).
    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. Salim Lahmiri, 2025. "Causality Between Brent and West Texas Intermediate: The Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic and Russia–Ukraine War," Commodities, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-14, February.

    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. Almeida, José & Gonçalves, Tiago Cruz, 2023. "A systematic literature review of investor behavior in the cryptocurrency markets," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    2. Assaf, Ata & Demir, Ender & Ersan, Oguz, 2024. "Detecting and date-stamping bubbles in fan tokens," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 98-113.
    3. Eray Gemici & Muslum Polat & Remzi Gök & Muhammad Asif Khan & Mohammed Arshad Khan & Yunus Kilic, 2023. "Do Bubbles in the Bitcoin Market Impact Stock Markets? Evidence From 10 Major Stock Markets," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(2), pages 21582440231, June.
    4. Shimeng Shi & Jia Zhai & Yingying Wu, 2024. "Informational inefficiency on bitcoin futures," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(6), pages 642-667, April.
    5. 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.
    6. Marco Lambrecht & Andis Sofianos & Yilong Xu, 2025. "Does Mining Fuel Bubbles? An Experimental Study on Cryptocurrency Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 71(3), pages 1865-1888, March.
    7. Sergio Luis Náñez Alonso & Javier Jorge-Vázquez & Miguel Ángel Echarte Fernández & David Sanz-Bas, 2024. "Bitcoin’s bubbly behaviors: does it resemble other financial bubbles of the past?," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Kumar Kulbhaskar, Anamika & Subramaniam, Sowmya, 2023. "Breaking news headlines: Impact on trading activity in the cryptocurrency market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    9. Ahmed, Walid M.A., 2021. "How do Islamic equity markets respond to good and bad volatility of cryptocurrencies? The case of Bitcoin," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    10. Ahmed, Mohamed Shaker & El-Masry, Ahmed A. & Al-Maghyereh, Aktham I. & Kumar, Satish, 2024. "Cryptocurrency volatility: A review, synthesis, and research agenda," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    11. Nikolaos A. Kyriazis, 2021. "The Nexus of Sophisticated Digital Assets with Economic Policy Uncertainty: A Survey of Empirical Findings and an Empirical Investigation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-25, May.
    12. Li, Xiao & Wu, Ruoxi & Wang, Chen, 2024. "Impacts of bitcoin on monetary system: Is China's bitcoin ban necessary?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    13. Shimeng Shi, 2022. "Bitcoin futures risk premia," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(12), pages 2190-2217, December.
    14. Jimmy E. Hilliard & Julie T. D. Ngo, 2022. "Bitcoin: jumps, convenience yields, and option prices," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(11), pages 2079-2091, November.
    15. Hung, Jui-Cheng & Liu, Hung-Chun & Yang, J. Jimmy, 2020. "Improving the realized GARCH’s volatility forecast for Bitcoin with jump-robust estimators," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    16. Jiang, Yonghong & Wu, Lanxin & Tian, Gengyu & Nie, He, 2021. "Do cryptocurrencies hedge against EPU and the equity market volatility during COVID-19? – New evidence from quantile coherency analysis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    17. Ma, Chaoqun & Tian, Yonggang & Hsiao, Shisong & Deng, Liurui, 2022. "Monetary policy shocks and Bitcoin prices," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    18. Kong, Xiaolin & Ma, Chaoqun & Ren, Yi-Shuai & Baltas, Konstantinos & Narayan, Seema, 2024. "A comparative analysis of the price explosiveness in Bitcoin and forked coins," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    19. Sapkota, Niranjan & Grobys, Klaus, 2021. "Asset market equilibria in cryptocurrency markets: Evidence from a study of privacy and non-privacy coins," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bitcoin; COVID-19; Infectious diseases; SIR model; Pandemic;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G4 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance

    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:intfin:v:93:y:2024:i:c:s1042443124000775. 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/intfin .

    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.