IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v70y2024i4p2066-2085.html

Uncovering Retail Trading in Bitcoin: The Impact of COVID-19 Stimulus Checks

Author

Listed:
  • Anantha Divakaruni

    (University of Bergen, 5020 Bergen, Norway)

  • Peter Zimmerman

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio 44114)

Abstract

In April 2020, the U.S. government sent economic impact payments (EIPs) directly to households as part of its measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic. We characterize these stimulus checks as a wealth shock for households and examine their effect on retail trading in Bitcoin. We find a significant increase in Bitcoin buy trades of size $1,200, which is the modal EIP amount. We find similar increases in trading for other countries that paid out stimulus checks. We estimate that the EIPs have a significant impact on the U.S. dollar–Bitcoin trading pair, increasing buy volume by 3.8% and the price by 0.6%. We also find that demand for Bitcoin is highly price inelastic compared with the demand for stocks. We suggest the demographic characteristics that make people more resilient to the COVID-19 economic shock—single, computer literate, and educated—are also characteristics of people who are more interested in Bitcoin.

Suggested Citation

  • Anantha Divakaruni & Peter Zimmerman, 2024. "Uncovering Retail Trading in Bitcoin: The Impact of COVID-19 Stimulus Checks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(4), pages 2066-2085, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:70:y:2024:i:4:p:2066-2085
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2023.4790
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4790
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4790?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robin Greenwood & Toomas Laarits & Jeffrey Wurgler & Tarun Ramadorai, 2023. "Stock Market Stimulus," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 36(10), pages 4082-4112.
    2. Da‐Hea Kim, 2025. "Effects of Social Media‐Based Peer Opinions on the Prices of Cryptocurrency Options," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 45(10), pages 1512-1543, October.
    3. 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).
    4. Karmakar, Sayar & Demirer, Riza & Gupta, Rangan, 2021. "Bitcoin mining activity and volatility dynamics in the power market," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    5. Kennedy, Austin, 2025. "Fiscal spillovers through informal financial channels," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    6. Austin Kennedy, 2025. "Fiscal Spillovers through Informal Financial Channels," Papers 2508.06662, arXiv.org.
    7. Maouchi, Youcef & Charfeddine, Lanouar & El Montasser, Ghassen, 2022. "Understanding digital bubbles amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from DeFi and NFTs," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:70:y:2024:i:4:p:2066-2085. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.