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This study investigates the role of cryptocurrencies in enhancing the performance of portfolios constructed from traditional asset classes. Using a long sample period covering not only the large value increases but also the dramatic declines during the beginning of 2018, the purpose of this paper is to provide a more complete analysis of the dynamic nature of cryptocurrencies as individual investment opportunities, and as components of optimal portfolios.

The mean-variance optimization technique of Merton (1990) is applied to develop the risk and return characteristics of the efficient portfolios, along with the optimal weights of the asset class components in the portfolios.

The authors provide evidence that as a single investment, the best cryptocurrency is Ripple, followed by Bitcoin and Litecoin. Furthermore, cryptocurrencies have a useful role in the optimal portfolio construction and in investments, in addition to their original purposes for which they were created. Bitcoin is the best cryptocurrency enhancing the characteristics of the optimal portfolio. Ripple and Litecoin follow in terms of their usefulness in an optimal portfolio as single cryptocurrencies. Including all these cryptocurrencies in a portfolio generates the best (most optimal) results. Contributions of the cryptocurrencies to the optimal portfolio evolve over time. Therefore, the results and conclusions of this study have no guarantee for continuation in an exact manner in the future. However, the increasing popularity and the unique characteristics of cryptocurrencies will assist their future presence in investment portfolios.

This is one of the first studies that examine the role of popular cryptocurrencies in enhancing a portfolio composed of traditional asset classes. The sample period is the largest that has been used in this strand of the literature, and allows to compare optimal portfolios in early/recent subsamples, and during the pre-/post-cryptocurrency crisis periods.

Critics say cryptocurrencies are hard to predict and lack both economic value and accounting standards, while supporters argue they are revolutionary financial technology and a new asset class. This study aims to help accounting and financial modelers compare cryptocurrencies with other asset classes (such as gold, stocks and bond markets) and develop cryptocurrency forecast models.

Daily data from 12/31/2013 to 08/01/2020 (including the COVID-19 pandemic period) for the top six cryptocurrencies that constitute 80% of the market are used. Cryptocurrency price, return and volatility are forecasted using five traditional econometric techniques: pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, fixed-effect model (FEM), random-effect model (REM), panel vector error correction model (VECM) and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH). Fama and French's five-factor analysis, a frequently used method to study stock returns, is conducted on cryptocurrency returns in a panel-data setting. Finally, an efficient frontier is produced with and without cryptocurrencies to see how adding cryptocurrencies to a portfolio makes a difference.

The seven findings in this analysis are summarized as follows: (1) VECM produces the best out-of-sample price forecast of cryptocurrency prices; (2) cryptocurrencies are unlike cash for accounting purposes as they are very volatile: the standard deviations of daily returns are several times larger than those of the other financial assets; (3) cryptocurrencies are not a substitute for gold as a safe-haven asset; (4) the five most significant determinants of cryptocurrency daily returns are emerging markets stock index, S&P 500 stock index, return on gold, volatility of daily returns and the volatility index (VIX); (5) their return volatility is persistent and can be forecasted using the GARCH model; (6) in a portfolio setting, cryptocurrencies exhibit negative alpha, high beta, similar to small and growth stocks and (7) a cryptocurrency portfolio offers more portfolio choices for investors and resembles a levered portfolio.

One of the tasks of the financial econometrics profession is building pro forma models that meet accounting standards and satisfy auditors. This paper undertook such activity by deploying traditional financial econometric methods and applying them to an emerging cryptocurrency asset class.

This paper attempts to contribute to the existing academic literature in three ways: Pro forma models for price forecasting: five established traditional econometric techniques (as opposed to novel methods) are deployed to forecast prices; Cryptocurrency as a group: instead of analyzing one currency at a time and running the risk of missing out on cross-sectional effects (as done by most other researchers), the top-six cryptocurrencies constitute 80% of the market, are analyzed together as a group using panel-data methods; Cryptocurrencies as financial assets in a portfolio: To understand the linkages between cryptocurrencies and traditional portfolio characteristics, an efficient frontier is produced with and without cryptocurrencies to see how adding cryptocurrencies to an investment portfolio makes a difference.

Given the cryptocurrency market boom in recent years, this study aims to identify the factors influencing cryptocurrency pricing and the major gaps for future research.

A systematic literature review was undertaken. Three databases, Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCOhost, were used for this review. The final analysis comprised 88 articles that met the eligibility criteria.

The influential factors were identified and categorized as supply and demand, technology, economics, market volatility, investors’ attributes and social media. This review provides a comprehensive and consolidated view of cryptocurrency pricing and maps the significant influential factors.

This paper is the first to systematically and comprehensively review the relevant literature on cryptocurrency to identify the factors of pricing fluctuation. This research contributes to cryptocurrency research as well as to consumer behaviors and marketing discipline in broad.

This paper aims to study the interlinkages between cryptocurrency and the stock market by characterizing their connectedness and the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on their relations.

The author employs a quantile vector autoregression (QVAR) to identify the connectedness of nine indicators from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2021, in an effort to examine the relationships between cryptocurrency and stock markets.

The results demonstrate that the pandemic shocks appear to have influences on the system-wide dynamic connectedness. Dynamic net total directional connectedness implies that Bitcoin (BTC) is a net short-duration shock transmitter during the sample. BTC is a long-duration net receiver of shocks during the 2018–2020 period and turns into a long-duration net transmitter of shocks in late 2021. Ethereum is a net shock transmitter in both durations. Binance turns into a net short-duration shock transmitter during the COVID-19 outbreak before receiving net shocks in 2021. The stock market in different areas plays various roles in the short run and long run. During the COVID-19 pandemic shock, pairwise connectedness reveals that cryptocurrencies can explain the volatility of the stock markets with the most severe impact at the beginning of 2020.

Insightful knowledge about key antecedents of contagion among these markets also help policymakers design adequate policies to reduce these markets' vulnerabilities and minimize the spread of risk or uncertainty across these markets.

The author is the first to investigate the interlinkages between the cryptocurrency and the stock market and assess the influences of uncertain events like the COVID-19 health crisis on the dynamic interlinkages between these two markets.

本學術論文擬透過找出加密貨幣與股票市場兩者相互關聯之特徵,來探討這個聯繫;文章亦擬探究2019冠狀病毒病全球大流行對這相互關聯的影響。

作者以分量向量自我迴歸法、來找出2018年1月1日至2021年12月31日期間九個指標的關聯,藉此探討加密貨幣與股票市場之間的關係。

研究結果顯示,全球大流行的驚愕,似對全系統動態關聯產生了影響。動態總淨值定向關聯暗示了就我們的樣本而言,比特幣是一個純短期衝擊發送器。比特幣在2018年至 2020年期間是一個衝擊的長期純接收器,並進而於2021年年底成為一個衝擊的長期純發送器。以太坊則為短期以及長期之純衝擊發送器。幣安在2019冠狀病毒病爆發期間,在2021年接收純衝擊前、成為一個純短期衝擊發送器。位於不同地區的股票市場,無論在短期抑或長期而言均扮演各種不同的角色。在2019冠狀病毒病全球大流行的驚愕期間,成對的關聯顯示了加密貨幣可以以2020年年初最嚴重的影響去解釋和說明股票市場的波動。

研究結果使我們能深入認識有關的市場之間不同情緒和看法的蔓延所帶來的影響的主要先例,這些知識、亦能幫助決策者制定適當的政策,以減少有關的市場的弱點,並把這些市場間的風險和不確定性的散播減到最低。

作者是首位研究加密貨幣與股票市場之間的相互關聯的學者,亦是首位學者、去評估像2019冠狀病毒病健康危機的不確定事件,會如何影響有關的兩個市場之間的動態相互關聯。

The potential growth in cryptocurrencies has raised serious ethical and religious issues leading to a new investment rethinking. This paper aims to identify the influence of religiosity on cryptocurrency acceptance through an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) model.

In the first phase, this research develops a conceptual model that extends the theory of the TAM by integrating the religiosity component. In the second phase, the proposed model is tested using search volume queries in daily frequencies from 01/01/2018 to 31/12/2022 and structural equation modeling (SEM).

The empirical results demonstrate a significant positive effect of religiosity on the intention to use cryptocurrency, the users' perceived usefulness (PU) and ease of use (PEOU). Besides, the authors note that PEOU positively influences the intention. Furthermore, religiosity indirectly affects the intention through the PEOU and positively impacts the intention through the PU. In the same way, PEOU has a considerable indirect effect on the intention through PU.

This study has practical and theoretical contributions by providing insights into the cryptocurrency acceptance factors. In other words, it contributes to the literature by extending TAM models. Practically, it helps managers determine factors affecting the intention to use cryptocurrencies. Therefore, they can adjust their industry according to the suitable characteristics for creating successful projects.

Identifying the effect of religiosity on cryptocurrency users' choices and decisions has a social added value as it provides an understanding of the evolution of psychological variants.

The findings emphasize the importance of integrating big data to analyze users' attitudes. Besides, most studies on cryptocurrency acceptance are investigated based on one kind of religion, such as Christianity or Islam. Nevertheless, this paper integrates the effect of five types of faith on the users' intentions.

As cryptocurrencies continue to gain viability as an asset class, institutional investors and publicly traded firms have started taking investment positions in digital currencies. What firms may not be considering, however, is the effect these assets may have on their risk profiles. This study aims to (1) measure the effect of cryptocurrencies on the risk and return characteristics of publicly traded companies; (2) decipher the motives behind holding cryptocurrencies as an asset class; and (3) determine whether one reason for holding is more effective than another. To conduct this research, the four largest publicly traded holders of cryptocurrency as well as four of the most prominent cryptocurrencies are explored.

The cross-sectional analysis approach has been used to analyze the daily returns, volatility, betas and Sharpe Ratios of firms during periods without cryptocurrency strategies and during periods with cryptocurrency strategies.

The impact of the cryptocurrency asset class on common stock performance and corporate disclosures are documented. The importance of risk disclosures on cryptocurrency holdings is emphasized: Firms must better inform their stakeholders through comprehensive disclosures in financial statements. Firms utilize cryptocurrencies for various reasons such as treasury management tools or as direct sources of income. Consequently, the impact on returns and risks varies substantially.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies on cryptocurrency investments in the treasury departments of publicly traded companies. The study contributes to the literature by extracting relevant information regarding company risk reporting and cryptocurrency risk at firms. The conclusions also promote firm transparency with detailed reporting of cryptocurrency holding risks.

This study aims to explain how cryptocurrency is leveraged for illicit purposes across the global financial system. Specifically, it establishes how cryptocurrency has been changing the nature of transnational and domestic money laundering (ML). It then assesses the effectiveness of conventional anti-money laundering (AML) policy and legislation against the proliferation of crypto laundering, using Canada as a critical case study.

Data was collected from court cases and secondary sources to build cross-case trends of cryptocurrency use in ML. Illicit International Political Economy forms the theoretical foundation for this study, whose contribution is situated in the current literature on crypto-ML.

This study finds that Bitcoin is common among crypto-money launderers, though most also use some form of alt-coin, and that the use of third-party currency exchanges is a prevalent method to create illicit funds and conceal proceeds of crime. The findings validate two hypotheses that illicit use of crypto is prevalent in the first two stages of ML, and that crypto is most often used in conjunction with other fiat currencies. Although law enforcement is improving on monitoring and understanding popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, alt-coins pose a significant challenge for criminal intelligence. New regulations for third-party currency exchanges are having a positive impact on curtailing crypto-laundering but are shown to be insufficient per se to contain the use of crypto in criminal activity.

This study contributes to a more robust understanding of the use of virtual currency in transnational and domestic ML. It contributes to an emerging body of literature on the role of technological change in enabling the global flow of illicit funds. It also informs public policy on virtual currency in general, and on AML regulation in Canada in particular.

This study aims to explore how to deanonymize cryptocurrency money launderers with the help of machine learning (ML). Money is laundered through cryptocurrencies by distributing funds to multiple accounts and then reexchanging the crypto back. This process of exchanging currencies is done through cryptocurrency exchanges. Current preventive efforts are outdated, and ML may provide novel ways to identify illicit currency movements. Hence, this study investigates ML applicability for combatting money laundering activities using cryptocurrency.

Four supervised-learning algorithms were compared using the Bitcoin Elliptic Dataset. The method covered a quantitative analysis of the algorithmic performance, capturing differences in three key evaluation metrics of F1-scores, precision and recall. Two complementary qualitative interviews were performed at cryptocurrency exchanges to identify fit and applicability of the algorithms.

The study results show that the current implemented ML tools for preventing money laundering at cryptocurrency exchanges are all too slow and need to be optimized for the task. The results also show that while not one single algorithm is most suitable for detecting transactions related to money-laundering, the specific applicability of the decision tree algorithm is most suitable for adoption by cryptocurrency exchanges.

Given the growth of cryptocurrency use, this study explores the newly developed field of algorithmic tools to combat illicit currency movement, in particular in the growing arena of cryptocurrencies. The study results provide new insights into the applicability of ML as a tool to combat money laundering using cryptocurrency exchanges.

This paper claims to identify the behavioral and cultural features that push to use, or not, cryptocurrencies for electronic commerce. Indeed, despite the use of cryptocurrencies for electronic commerce spreading worldwide at a fast and growing pace, there are supporters and detractors among their users. The analysis of what distinguish these two groups of users is fundamental for understanding their different intention to use cryptocurrencies for electronic commerce.

A survey has been administered to 2,532 cryptocurrencies’ users across the USA and China, collecting data on their behavioral predispositions and cultural features. Results were then analyzed through structured equation modeling.

Results showed that while attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and herding behavior have a positive impact on the intention to use cryptocurrencies for electronic commerce, financial literacy has no influence. Cultural dimensions amplified or reduced the discovered relationships and caused different effects: positive for the USA and negative for China when considering illegal attitude and perceived risk.

Theory of planned behavior, financial behavior and cultural factors can, all together, represent a useful framework for envisioning the behavior of users in adopting cryptocurrencies for electronic commerce purposes through a test of all its elements. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study considering behavior and cultural variables on the intention to use cryptocurrencies for electronic commerce as well as being the largest carried out, in terms of sample, on the cryptocurrency topic.