Affiliation:
1. The State Key Laboratory of Blockchain and Data Security, Zhejiang University, XiHu Qu, China
2. Sun Yat-sen University, XiangZhou Qu, China
3. Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
4. Software Engineering Application Technology Lab Huawei, BingJiang Qu, China
Abstract
The cryptocurrency market cap experienced a great increase in recent years. However, large price fluctuations demonstrate the need for governance structures and identify whether there are market manipulations. In this paper, we conducted three analyses – social media data analysis, blockchain data analysis, and price bubble analysis – to investigate whether market manipulation exists on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin platforms. Social media data analysis aims to find the reasons for the price fluctuations. Blockchain data analysis is used to find the detailed behavior of the manipulators. Price bubble analysis is used to investigate the relation between price fluctuation and manipulators’ behavior. By using the three analyses, we show that market manipulation exists on Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin. However, market manipulation of Bitcoin is limited, and for most of Bitcoin’s price fluctuations, we found other explanations. The price for Ethereum is most sensitive to technical updates. Technical companies/teams usually hype some new concepts, e.g., ICO, DeFi, which causes a price spike. The price of Dogecoin has a high correlation with Elon Musk’s Twitter activity, which shows influential individuals have the ability to manipulate its prices. Also, the poor monetary liquidity of Dogecoin allows some users to manipulate its price.
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Subject
Computer Networks and Communications
Reference76 articles.
1. Bitcoin-Altcoin price synchronization hypothesis: evidence from recent data;Adedokun Adebayo;Journal of Finance and Economics,2019
2. C. Alexander and D. F. Heck. 2020. Price Discovery in Bitcoin: The Impact of Unregulated Markets. Journal of Financial Stability(2020) 100776.
3. Lennart Ante. 2021. How Elon Musk’s twitter activity moves cryptocurrency markets. Available at SSRN 3778844(2021).
4. Crypto currency and its susceptibility to speculative bubbles, manipulation, scams and fraud; al Paul Barnes;Journal of Advanced Studies in Finance (JASF),2018
5. Asymmetric volatility in cryptocurrencies