IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/revfin/v28y2024i4p1345-1381..html

Building trust takes time: limits to arbitrage for blockchain-based assets

Author

Listed:
  • Nikolaus Hautsch
  • Christoph Scheu
  • Stefan Voigt

Abstract

A blockchain replaces central counterparties with time-consuming consensus protocols to record the transfer of ownership. This settlement latency slows cross-exchange trading, exposing arbitrageurs to price risk. Off-chain settlement, instead, exposes arbitrageurs to costly default risk. We show with Bitcoin network and order book data that cross-exchange price differences coincide with periods of high settlement latency, asset flows chase arbitrage opportunities, and price differences across exchanges with low default risk are smaller. Blockchain-based trading thus faces a dilemma: Reliable consensus protocols require time-consuming settlement latency, leading to arbitrage limits. Circumventing such arbitrage costs is possible only by reinstalling trusted intermediation, which mitigates default risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Nikolaus Hautsch & Christoph Scheu & Stefan Voigt, 2024. "Building trust takes time: limits to arbitrage for blockchain-based assets," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 28(4), pages 1345-1381.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:revfin:v:28:y:2024:i:4:p:1345-1381.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rof/rfae004
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    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. Son, Bumho & Lee, Yunyoung & Jang, Huisu, 2025. "A two-stage game model of probabilistic price manipulation in decentralized exchanges," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    2. Hadhri, Sinda & Younus, Mehak & Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2025. "Listening to the Market: Music sentiment and cryptocurrency returns," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    3. Guo, Weiwei & Intini, Silvia & Jahanshahloo, Hossein, 2025. "Bitcoin arbitrage and exchange default risk," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    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. Chen, Meichen & Qin, Cong & Zhang, Xiaoyu, 2022. "Cryptocurrency price discrepancies under uncertainty: Evidence from COVID-19 and lockdown nexus," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    6. Divakaruni, Anantha & Zimmerman, Peter, 2023. "The Lightning Network: Turning Bitcoin into money," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    7. Bruno Biais & Christophe Bisière & Matthieu Bouvard & Catherine Casamatta & Albert J. Menkveld, 2023. "Equilibrium Bitcoin Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(2), pages 967-1014, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G00 - Financial Economics - - General - - - General
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • 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:oup:revfin:v:28:y:2024:i:4:p:1345-1381.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eufaaea.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.