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Price discovery and microstructure in ether spot and derivative markets

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  • Alexander, Carol
  • Choi, Jaehyuk
  • Massie, Hamish R.A.
  • Sohn, Sungbin

Abstract

Ethereum is an important blockchain, being the first and most popular public platform for the smart contracts underpinning financial transactions, time-stamping of supply chains, decentralized applications and initial coin offerings. Ethereum's cryptocurrency, ether, is actively traded on centralized exchanges, second only to bitcoin. It has attracted investor's interest primarily because of its intrinsic value – small units of ether called ‘gas’ are used, essentially, as the fuel driving smart contract transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. We ask whether off-chain trading on ether derivatives plays a dominant role in ether spot price discovery, thereby driving ether's utility value for on-chain activity. Using minute-by-minute data we find that the ether perpetual swap on BitMEX, an unregulated cryptocurrency derivative exchange, has dominant trading volume and price discovery over the major spot exchanges. Furthermore, we identify interesting hour-of-day and day-of-week effects in trading volume on the spot exchanges, and these indicate that more informed institutional players are trading ether spot and derivatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander, Carol & Choi, Jaehyuk & Massie, Hamish R.A. & Sohn, Sungbin, 2020. "Price discovery and microstructure in ether spot and derivative markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:71:y:2020:i:c:s1057521920301502
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2020.101506
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    2. Prashant Sharma & Prashant Gupta & Dinesh Kumar Sharma & Gaurav Agarwal, 2022. "Investigating the Efficiency of Bitcoin Futures in Price Discovery," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 12(3), pages 104-109, May.
    3. Apostolakis, George N., 2024. "Bitcoin price volatility transmission between spot and futures markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    4. Lien, Donald, 2022. "Comparisons of Alternative Information Share Measures," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    5. Urquhart, Andrew, 2022. "Under the hood of the Ethereum blockchain," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    6. Su, Fei & Wang, Xinyi & Yuan, Yulin, 2022. "The intraday dynamics and intraday price discovery of bitcoin," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    7. Papavassiliou, Vassilios G. & Kinateder, Harald, 2021. "Information shares and market quality before and during the European sovereign debt crisis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    8. Takahiro Hattori & Ryo Ishida, 2021. "The relationship between arbitrage in futures and spot markets and Bitcoin price movements: Evidence from the Bitcoin markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(1), pages 105-114, January.
    9. Yeguang Chi & Wenyan Hao, 2020. "A Horserace of Volatility Models for Cryptocurrency: Evidence from Bitcoin Spot and Option Markets," Papers 2010.07402, arXiv.org.
    10. Kirill D. Shilov & Andrei V. Zubarev, 2023. "Factors of Ethereum Profitability as a Platform for Creating Decentrilized Applications," Finansovyj žhurnal — Financial Journal, Financial Research Institute, Moscow 125375, Russia, issue 1, pages 95-115, February.
    11. Brini, Alessio & Lenz, Jimmie, 2024. "Pricing cryptocurrency options with machine learning regression for handling market volatility," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    12. Conlon, Thomas & Corbet, Shaen & McGee, Richard J., 2024. "The Bitcoin volume-volatility relationship: A high frequency analysis of futures and spot exchanges," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    13. Weige Huang & Xiang Gao, 2023. "Forecasting Bitcoin Futures: A Lasso-BMA Two-Step Predictor Selection for Investment and Hedging Strategies," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, January.
    14. Chi, Yeguang & Hao, Wenyan, 2021. "Volatility models for cryptocurrencies and applications in the options market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

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