IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v150y2017icp6-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the inefficiency of Bitcoin

Author

Listed:
  • Nadarajah, Saralees
  • Chu, Jeffrey

Abstract

Urquhart (2016) investigated the market efficiency of Bitcoin by means of five different tests on Bitcoin returns. It was concluded that the Bitcoin returns do not satisfy the efficient market hypothesis. We show here that a simple power transformation of the Bitcoin returns do satisfy the hypothesis through the use of eight different tests. The transformation used does not lead to any loss of information.

Suggested Citation

  • Nadarajah, Saralees & Chu, Jeffrey, 2017. "On the inefficiency of Bitcoin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 6-9.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:150:y:2017:i:c:p:6-9
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2016.10.033
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176516304426
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2016.10.033?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Garcia & Claudio Juan Tessone & Pavlin Mavrodiev & Nicolas Perony, 2014. "The digital traces of bubbles: feedback cycles between socio-economic signals in the Bitcoin economy," Papers 1408.1494, arXiv.org.
    2. Urquhart, Andrew, 2016. "The inefficiency of Bitcoin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 80-82.
    3. Choi, In, 1999. "Testing the Random Walk Hypothesis for Real Exchange Rates," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(3), pages 293-308, May-June.
    4. David Garcia & Claudio Tessone & Pavlin Mavrodiev & Nicolas Perony, "undated". "The digital traces of bubbles: feedback cycles between socio-economic signals in the Bitcoin economy," Working Papers ETH-RC-14-001, ETH Zurich, Chair of Systems Design.
    5. Escanciano, J. Carlos & Lobato, Ignacio N., 2009. "An automatic Portmanteau test for serial correlation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 151(2), pages 140-149, August.
    6. Escanciano, J. Carlos & Velasco, Carlos, 2006. "Generalized spectral tests for the martingale difference hypothesis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 151-185, September.
    7. Adrian (Wai-Kong) Cheung & Eduardo Roca & Jen-Je Su, 2015. "Crypto-currency bubbles: an application of the Phillips-Shi-Yu (2013) methodology on Mt. Gox bitcoin prices," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(23), pages 2348-2358, May.
    8. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    9. Kim, Jae H., 2009. "Automatic variance ratio test under conditional heteroskedasticity," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 179-185, September.
    10. D'aniel Kondor & M'arton P'osfai & Istv'an Csabai & G'abor Vattay, 2013. "Do the rich get richer? An empirical analysis of the BitCoin transaction network," Papers 1308.3892, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2014.
    11. Dániel Kondor & Márton Pósfai & István Csabai & Gábor Vattay, 2014. "Do the Rich Get Richer? An Empirical Analysis of the Bitcoin Transaction Network," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(2), pages 1-10, February.
    12. Durlauf, Steven N., 1991. "Spectral based testing of the martingale hypothesis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 355-376, December.
    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. Andrea Flori, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies In Finance: Review And Applications," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(05), pages 1-22, August.
    2. Flori, Andrea, 2019. "News and subjective beliefs: A Bayesian approach to Bitcoin investments," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 336-356.
    3. Aurelio F. Bariviera & Ignasi Merediz‐Solà, 2021. "Where Do We Stand In Cryptocurrencies Economic Research? A Survey Based On Hybrid Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 377-407, April.
    4. Stefano Martinazzi & Daniele Regoli & Andrea Flori, 2020. "A Tale of Two Layers: The Mutual Relationship between Bitcoin and Lightning Network," Risks, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-18, December.
    5. Köchling, Gerrit & Müller, Janis & Posch, Peter N., 2019. "Does the introduction of futures improve the efficiency of Bitcoin?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 367-370.
    6. Nikolaos A. Kyriazis, 2019. "A Survey on Efficiency and Profitable Trading Opportunities in Cryptocurrency Markets," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, April.
    7. Kristoufek, Ladislav, 2018. "On Bitcoin markets (in)efficiency and its evolution," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 503(C), pages 257-262.
    8. Charles, Amélie & Darné, Olivier & Kim, Jae H., 2012. "Exchange-rate return predictability and the adaptive markets hypothesis: Evidence from major foreign exchange rates," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1607-1626.
    9. Zdeněk Hlávka & Marie Hušková & Claudia Kirch & Simos G. Meintanis, 2017. "Fourier--type tests involving martingale difference processes," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(4), pages 468-492, April.
    10. Akbar, Muhammad & Ullah, Ihsan & Ali, Shahid & Rehman, Naser, 2024. "Adaptive market hypothesis: A comparison of Islamic and conventional stock indices," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PA), pages 460-477.
    11. Fry, John & Cheah, Eng-Tuck, 2016. "Negative bubbles and shocks in cryptocurrency markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 343-352.
    12. Begušić, Stjepan & Kostanjčar, Zvonko & Eugene Stanley, H. & Podobnik, Boris, 2018. "Scaling properties of extreme price fluctuations in Bitcoin markets," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 510(C), pages 400-406.
    13. Tseng, Fang-Mei & Palma Gil, Eunice Ina N. & Lu, Louis Y.Y., 2021. "Developmental trajectories of blockchain research and its major subfields," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    14. Peter C. B. Phillips & Sainan Jin, 2014. "Testing the Martingale Hypothesis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 537-554, October.
    15. Sha Wang & Jean-Philippe Vergne, 2017. "Buzz Factor or Innovation Potential: What Explains Cryptocurrencies’ Returns?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(1), pages 1-17, January.
    16. Li, Mu-Yao & Cai, Qing & Gu, Gao-Feng & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2019. "Exponentially decayed double power-law distribution of Bitcoin trade sizes," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 535(C).
    17. Stéphane Goutte & David Guerreiro & Bilel Sanhaji & Sophie Saglio & Julien Chevallier, 2019. "International Financial Markets," Post-Print halshs-02183053, HAL.
    18. Jeffrey Chu & Saralees Nadarajah & Stephen Chan, 2015. "Statistical Analysis of the Exchange Rate of Bitcoin," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-27, July.
    19. Shimeng Shi & Jia Zhai & Yingying Wu, 2024. "Informational inefficiency on bitcoin futures," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(6), pages 642-667, April.
    20. Kim, Jae H. & Shamsuddin, Abul & Lim, Kian-Ping, 2011. "Stock return predictability and the adaptive markets hypothesis: Evidence from century-long U.S. data," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 868-879.

    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:eee:ecolet:v:150:y:2017:i:c:p:6-9. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.