IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2602.20771.html

Market Inefficiency in Cryptoasset Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Joel Hasbrouck
  • Julian Ma
  • Fahad Saleh
  • Caspar Schwarz-Schilling

Abstract

We demonstrate market inefficiency in cryptoasset markets. Our approach examines investments that share a dominant risk factor but differ in their exposure to a secondary risk. We derive equilibrium restrictions that must hold regardless of how investors price either risk. Our empirical results strongly reject these necessary equilibrium restrictions. The rejection implies market inefficiency that cannot be attributed to mispriced risk, suggesting the presence of frictions that impede capital reallocation.

Suggested Citation

  • Joel Hasbrouck & Julian Ma & Fahad Saleh & Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, 2026. "Market Inefficiency in Cryptoasset Markets," Papers 2602.20771, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2026.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2602.20771
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.20771
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lin William Cong & Zhiheng He & Ke Tang, 2025. "The Tokenomics of Staking," NBER Working Papers 33640, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Kose John & Thomas J Rivera & Fahad Saleh, 2025. "Proof-of-Work versus Proof-of-Stake: A Comparative Economic Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 38(7), pages 1955-2004.
    3. Harrison, J. Michael & Kreps, David M., 1979. "Martingales and arbitrage in multiperiod securities markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 381-408, June.
    4. Kose John & Leonid Kogan & Fahad Saleh, 2023. "Smart Contracts and Decentralized Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 15(1), pages 523-542, November.
    5. Alfred Lehar & Christine Parlour, 2025. "Decentralized Exchange: The Uniswap Automated Market Maker," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 80(1), pages 321-374, February.
    6. Andreas Park, 2023. "The Conceptual Flaws of Decentralized Automated Market Making," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(11), pages 6731-6751, November.
    7. Lewis Gudgeon & Sam M. Werner & Daniel Perez & William J. Knottenbelt, 2020. "DeFi Protocols for Loanable Funds: Interest Rates, Liquidity and Market Efficiency," Papers 2006.13922, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2020.
    8. 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.
    9. Ioanid Roşu & Fahad Saleh, 2021. "Evolution of Shares in a Proof-of-Stake Cryptocurrency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 661-672, February.
    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. John, Kose & Monnot, Barnabé & Mueller, Peter & Saleh, Fahad & Schwarz-Schilling, Caspar, 2025. "Economics of Ethereum," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    2. Dion Bongaerts & Thomas Lambert & Daniel Liebau & Peter Roosenboom, 2025. "Vote Delegation in DeFi Governance," Papers 2503.11940, arXiv.org.
    3. Wenpin Tang, 2022. "Stability of shares in the Proof of Stake Protocol -- Concentration and Phase Transitions," Papers 2206.02227, arXiv.org.
    4. Son, Jaemin & Ryu, Doojin, 2024. "Competitive dynamics between decentralized and centralized finance lending markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    5. Capponi, Agostino & Jia, Ruizhe & Wang, Kanye Ye, 2025. "Maximal extractable value and allocative inefficiencies in public blockchains," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    6. 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.
    7. Agathe Sadeghi & Zachary Feinstein, 2026. "Liquidation Dynamics in DeFi and the Role of Transaction Fees," Papers 2602.12104, arXiv.org.
    8. Wang, Jying-Nan & Vigne, Samuel A. & Liu, Hung-Chun & Hsu, Yuan-Teng, 2024. "Divergent jump characteristics in brown and green cryptocurrencies: The role of energy-related uncertainty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    9. Wenpin Tang & David D. Yao, 2022. "Trading under the Proof-of-Stake Protocol -- a Continuous-Time Control Approach," Papers 2207.12581, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    10. Carol Alexander & Xi Chen & Jun Deng & Qi Fu, 2025. "Price Discovery and Efficiency in Uniswap Liquidity Pools," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 45(8), pages 1023-1048, August.
    11. Wenpin Tang, 2023. "Trading and wealth evolution in the Proof of Stake protocol," Papers 2308.01803, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    12. Jin, Minyue & Zhang, Xinxin & Yue, Xiaohang & Zuo, Qianzhou & Nie, Jiajia, 2025. "Consensus mechanism selection in Web 3.0 blockchain platforms: Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    13. Hansen, Lars Peter, 2013. "Uncertainty Outside and Inside Economic Models," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2013-7, Nobel Prize Committee.
    14. Annabi, Amira & Breton, Michèle & François, Pascal, 2012. "Resolution of financial distress under Chapter 11," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 1867-1887.
    15. Nicola Jean & Giacomo Le Pera & Lorenzo Giada & Claudio Nordio, 2025. "A Framework for Waterfall Pricing Using Simulation-Based Uncertainty Modeling," Papers 2507.13324, arXiv.org.
    16. Marcelo F. Perillo, 2021. "Valuación de Títulos de Deuda Indexados al Comportamiento de un Índice Accionario: Un Modelo sin Riesgo de Crédito," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 784, Universidad del CEMA.
    17. René Garcia & Richard Luger & Eric Renault, 2000. "Asymmetric Smiles, Leverage Effects and Structural Parameters," Working Papers 2000-57, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    18. Patrick Gagliardini & Christian Gouriéroux, 2011. "Approximate Derivative Pricing for Large Classes of Homogeneous Assets with Systematic Risk," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 237-280, Spring.
    19. Marco Matsumara & Ajax R.B. Moreira, 2005. "Can Macroeconomic Variables Account for the Term Structure of Sovereign Spreads? Studying the Brazilian Case," Discussion Papers 1106, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada - IPEA.
    20. Radwanski, Juliusz, 2020. "On the Purchasing Power of Money in an Exchange Economy," MPRA Paper 104244, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2602.20771. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.