IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/riibaf/v78y2025ics0275531925002648.html

The role of whale investors in the bitcoin market

Author

Listed:
  • Shen, Dehua
  • Shi, Guiqiang

Abstract

To theoretically investigate the role of whale investors in the Bitcoin market, we construct an Artificial Bitcoin Market (ABM). The ABM reproduces stylized facts observed in the real Bitcoin market, such as fat tails, volatility clustering, autocorrelation, and long memory. We find that as the proportion of whale investors increases, market volatility rises sharply. Specifically, in a small-world network, when the proportion of whale investors increases from 1 % to 6 %, the daily volatility increases by 104 %. This highlights the significant role of whale investors in the Bitcoin market and suggests that regulators should enhance oversight of influential investors. As the share of such investors increases, the market may exhibit more unpredictable and complex characteristics, which, in turn, could profoundly impact market dynamics and pose challenges to market stability.

Suggested Citation

  • Shen, Dehua & Shi, Guiqiang, 2025. "The role of whale investors in the bitcoin market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:78:y:2025:i:c:s0275531925002648
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275531925002648
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103008?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luisanna Cocco & Giulio Concas & Michele Marchesi, 2017. "Using an artificial financial market for studying a cryptocurrency market," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 12(2), pages 345-365, July.
    2. Shaen Corbet & Charles Larkin & Brian M. Lucey & Andrew Meegan & Larisa Yarovaya, 2020. "The impact of macroeconomic news on Bitcoin returns," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(14), pages 1396-1416, September.
    3. Westerhoff, Frank H. & Dieci, Roberto, 2006. "The effectiveness of Keynes-Tobin transaction taxes when heterogeneous agents can trade in different markets: A behavioral finance approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 293-322, February.
    4. Blaurock, Ivonne & Schmitt, Noemi & Westerhoff, Frank, 2018. "Market entry waves and volatility outbursts in stock markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 19-37.
    5. LeBaron, Blake, 2006. "Agent-based Computational Finance," Handbook of Computational Economics, in: Leigh Tesfatsion & Kenneth L. Judd (ed.), Handbook of Computational Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 24, pages 1187-1233, Elsevier.
    6. Sandrine Jacob Leal & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Giorgio Fagiolo, 2016. "Rock around the clock: An agent-based model of low- and high-frequency trading," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 49-76, March.
    7. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk & Demir, Ender & Gozgor, Giray & Lau, Chi Keung Marco, 2019. "Effects of the geopolitical risks on Bitcoin returns and volatility," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 511-518.
    8. Chen, Shu-Heng & Yeh, Chia-Hsuan, 2002. "On the emergent properties of artificial stock markets: the efficient market hypothesis and the rational expectations hypothesis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 217-239, October.
    9. Emiliano S Pagnotta, 2022. "Decentralizing Money: Bitcoin Prices and Blockchain Security," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(2), pages 866-907.
    10. repec:hal:journl:hal-01512863 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Leal, Sandrine Jacob & Napoletano, Mauro, 2019. "Market stability vs. market resilience: Regulatory policies experiments in an agent-based model with low- and high-frequency trading," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 15-41.
    12. Frank McGroarty & Ash Booth & Enrico Gerding & V. L. Raju Chinthalapati, 2019. "High frequency trading strategies, market fragility and price spikes: an agent based model perspective," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 282(1), pages 217-244, November.
    13. Evrim Mandaci, Pinar & Cagli, Efe Caglar, 2022. "Herding intensity and volatility in cryptocurrency markets during the COVID-19," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB).
    14. Kyriazis, Nikolaos & Papadamou, Stephanos & Tzeremes, Panayiotis & Corbet, Shaen, 2023. "The differential influence of social media sentiment on cryptocurrency returns and volatility during COVID-19," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 307-317.
    15. Sunyoung Lee & Keun Lee, 2021. "3% rules the market: herding behavior of a group of investors, asset market volatility, and return to the group in an agent-based model," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 16(2), pages 359-380, April.
    16. Corbet, Shaen & Larkin, Charles & Lucey, Brian & Meegan, Andrew & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2020. "Cryptocurrency reaction to FOMC Announcements: Evidence of heterogeneity based on blockchain stack position," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    17. Christian M Hafner, 2020. "Testing for Bubbles in Cryptocurrencies with Time-Varying Volatility," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 233-249.
    18. Day, Richard H. & Huang, Weihong, 1990. "Bulls, bears and market sheep," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 299-329, December.
    19. Di Guilmi, Corrado & He, Xue-Zhong & Li, Kai, 2014. "Herding, trend chasing and market volatility," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 349-373.
    20. Yeh, Chia-Hsuan & Yang, Chun-Yi, 2010. "Examining the effectiveness of price limits in an artificial stock market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2089-2108, October.
    21. Wang, Guocheng & Wang, Yanyi, 2018. "Herding, social network and volatility," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 74-81.
    22. Chen, Yan & Zhang, Lei & Bouri, Elie, 2024. "Co-Bubble transmission across clean and dirty Cryptocurrencies: Network and portfolio analysis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    23. Yen, Kuang-Chieh & Cheng, Hui-Pei, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty and cryptocurrency volatility," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    24. Ben Osman, Myriam & Galariotis, Emilios & Guesmi, Khaled & Hamdi, Haykel & Naoui, Kamel, 2024. "Are markets sentiment driving the price bubbles in the virtual?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PB), pages 272-285.
    25. Yanhao (Max) Wei & Anthony Dukes, 2021. "Cryptocurrency Adoption with Speculative Price Bubbles," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(2), pages 241-260, March.
    26. Wei Zhang & Pengfei Wang & Xiao Li & Dehua Shen, 2018. "Some stylized facts of the cryptocurrency market," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(55), pages 5950-5965, November.
    27. 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.
    28. Yin, Libo & Nie, Jing & Han, Liyan, 2021. "Understanding cryptocurrency volatility: The role of oil market shocks," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 233-253.
    29. LeBaron, Blake & Arthur, W. Brian & Palmer, Richard, 1999. "Time series properties of an artificial stock market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 1487-1516, September.
    30. Cheah, Eng-Tuck & Fry, John, 2015. "Speculative bubbles in Bitcoin markets? An empirical investigation into the fundamental value of Bitcoin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 32-36.
    31. Sabah, Nasim, 2020. "Cryptocurrency accepting venues, investor attention, and volatility," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    32. 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).
    33. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6ummnc8nko827b2luohnctekk7 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. López-Cabarcos, M. Ángeles & Pérez-Pico, Ada M. & Piñeiro-Chousa, Juan & Šević, Aleksandar, 2021. "Bitcoin volatility, stock market and investor sentiment. Are they connected?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    35. Fang, Tong & Su, Zhi & Yin, Libo, 2020. "Economic fundamentals or investor perceptions? The role of uncertainty in predicting long-term cryptocurrency volatility," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    36. Chen, Shu-Heng & Yeh, Chia-Hsuan, 2001. "Evolving traders and the business school with genetic programming: A new architecture of the agent-based artificial stock market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(3-4), pages 363-393, March.
    37. Yi, Shuyue & Xu, Zishuang & Wang, Gang-Jin, 2018. "Volatility connectedness in the cryptocurrency market: Is Bitcoin a dominant cryptocurrency?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 98-114.
    38. Al Guindy, Mohamed, 2021. "Cryptocurrency price volatility and investor attention," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 556-570.
    39. Adrian (Wai-Kong) Cheung & Eduardo Roca & Jen-Je Su, 2015. "Crypto-currency bubbles: an application of the Phillips-Shi-Yu (2013) methodology on Mt. Gox bitcoin prices," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(23), pages 2348-2358, May.
    40. 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.
    41. Walther, Thomas & Klein, Tony & Bouri, Elie, 2019. "Exogenous drivers of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency volatility – A mixed data sampling approach to forecasting," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    42. Jiqian Wang & Feng Ma & Elie Bouri & Yangli Guo, 2023. "Which factors drive Bitcoin volatility: Macroeconomic, technical, or both?," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 970-988, July.
    43. Mannaro, Katiuscia & Marchesi, Michele & Setzu, Alessio, 2008. "Using an artificial financial market for assessing the impact of Tobin-like transaction taxes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 445-462, August.
    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. Bridget Smart & Ebba Mark & Anne Bastian & Josefina Waugh, 2026. "Manipulation in Prediction Markets: An Agent-based Modeling Experiment," Papers 2601.20452, arXiv.org.

    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, 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).
    2. Noemi Schmitt & Ivonne Schwartz & Frank Westerhoff, 2022. "Heterogeneous speculators and stock market dynamics: a simple agent-based computational model," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(13-15), pages 1263-1282, October.
    3. Aras, Serkan & Özdemir, Mehmet Ozan & Çılgın, Cihan, 2025. "Uncertainty or investor attention: Which has more impact on Bitcoin volatility?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(PB).
    4. Aiman Hairudin & Azhar Mohamad, 2024. "The isotropy of cryptocurrency volatility," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 3779-3810, July.
    5. Chowdhury, Md Shahedur R. & Damianov, Damian S., 2024. "Uncertainty and bubbles in cryptocurrencies: Evidence from newly developed uncertainty indices," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    6. Xia, Yufei & Sang, Chong & He, Lingyun & Wang, Ziyao, 2023. "The role of uncertainty index in forecasting volatility of Bitcoin: Fresh evidence from GARCH-MIDAS approach," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    7. 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).
    8. Sila, Jan & Kocenda, Evzen & Kristoufek, Ladislav & Kukacka, Jiri, 2024. "Good vs. bad volatility in major cryptocurrencies: The dichotomy and drivers of connectedness," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    9. Westerhoff Frank H., 2008. "The Use of Agent-Based Financial Market Models to Test the Effectiveness of Regulatory Policies," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 228(2-3), pages 195-227, April.
    10. Chen, Bin-xia & Sun, Yan-lin, 2024. "Risk characteristics and connectedness in cryptocurrency markets: New evidence from a non-linear framework," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(PA).
    11. Noemi Schmitt & Frank Westerhoff, 2017. "Heterogeneity, spontaneous coordination and extreme events within large-scale and small-scale agent-based financial market models," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 27(5), pages 1041-1070, November.
    12. Manahov, Viktor & Urquhart, Andrew, 2021. "The efficiency of Bitcoin: A strongly typed genetic programming approach to smart electronic Bitcoin markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    13. Peng‐Fei Dai & John W. Goodell & Luu Duc Toan Huynh & Zhifeng Liu & Shaen Corbet, 2023. "Understanding the transmission of crash risk between cryptocurrency and equity markets," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 539-573, August.
    14. Toan Luu Duc Huynh, 2019. "Spillover Risks on Cryptocurrency Markets: A Look from VAR-SVAR Granger Causality and Student’s-t Copulas," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-19, April.
    15. Hu, Yang & Hou, Yang (Greg) & Oxley, Les & Corbet, Shaen, 2021. "Does blockchain patent-development influence Bitcoin risk?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    16. Muhammad Anas & Syed Jawad Hussain Shahzad & Larisa Yarovaya, 2024. "The use of high-frequency data in cryptocurrency research: a meta-review of literature with bibliometric analysis," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 1-31, December.
    17. Lucey, Brian M. & Vigne, Samuel A. & Yarovaya, Larisa & Wang, Yizhi, 2022. "The cryptocurrency uncertainty index," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    18. Frank H. Westerhoff, 2009. "Exchange Rate Dynamics: A Nonlinear Survey," Chapters, in: J. Barkley Rosser Jr. (ed.), Handbook of Research on Complexity, chapter 11, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Giménez Roche, Gabriel A. & Noël, Antoine & Sauce, Loïc, 2025. "Bitcoin trade volume in decentralized markets: International evidence," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    20. Al-Shboul, Mohammad & Assaf, Ata & Mokni, Khaled, 2022. "When bitcoin lost its position: Cryptocurrency uncertainty and the dynamic spillover among cryptocurrencies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:riibaf:v:78:y:2025:i:c:s0275531925002648. 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/ribaf .

    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.