IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v67y2024ipbs154461232400905x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dark web traffic, privacy coins, and cryptocurrency trading activity

Author

Listed:
  • Scharnowski, Stefan

Abstract

Cryptocurrencies, especially privacy coins, conceal the flow of money. Similarly, the dark web obscures the flow of internet traffic, increasing anonymity. In this paper, I provide evidence that secondary market trading activity in privacy coins is linked to dark web traffic, although their pricing remains mostly unaffected. This finding holds after considering various controls and comparing similar privacy and non-privacy coins. However, when disentangling dark web traffic by country of origin, I find that privacy coin prices correlate positively with traffic from China, while trading volume is mainly driven by users from Russia and Iran.

Suggested Citation

  • Scharnowski, Stefan, 2024. "Dark web traffic, privacy coins, and cryptocurrency trading activity," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(PB).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:67:y:2024:i:pb:s154461232400905x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2024.105875
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S154461232400905X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2024.105875?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. Sapkota, Niranjan & Grobys, Klaus, 2021. "Asset market equilibria in cryptocurrency markets: Evidence from a study of privacy and non-privacy coins," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Scharnowski, Stefan, 2021. "Understanding Bitcoin liquidity," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    3. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2015. "A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 317-372.
    4. Aalborg, Halvor Aarhus & Molnár, Peter & de Vries, Jon Erik, 2019. "What can explain the price, volatility and trading volume of Bitcoin?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 255-265.
    5. Olli-Pekka Hilmola, 2021. "On Prices of Privacy Coins and Bitcoin," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-15, August.
    6. Sean Foley & Jonathan R Karlsen & Tālis J Putniņš, 2019. "Sex, Drugs, and Bitcoin: How Much Illegal Activity Is Financed through Cryptocurrencies?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1798-1853.
    7. Alnasaa, Marwa & Gueorguiev, Nikolay & Honda, Jiro & Imamoglu, Eslem & Mauro, Paolo & Primus, Keyra & Rozhkov, Dmitriy, 2022. "Crypto-assets, corruption, and capital controls: Cross-country correlations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    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. Sharif, Arshian & Brahim, Mariem & Dogan, Eyup & Tzeremes, Panayiotis, 2023. "Analysis of the spillover effects between green economy, clean and dirty cryptocurrencies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    2. Bao, Hong & Li, Jianjun & Peng, Yuchao & Qu, Qiang, 2022. "Can Bitcoin help money cross the border: International evidence," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    3. Karim, Sitara & Lucey, Brian M. & Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Vigne, Samuel A., 2023. "The dark side of Bitcoin: Do Emerging Asian Islamic markets help subdue the ethical risk?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    4. Helder Miguel Correia Virtuoso Sebastião & Paulo José Osório Rupino Da Cunha & Pedro Manuel Cortesão Godinho, 2021. "Cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Overview and future perspectives," International Journal of Economics and Business Research, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 21(3), pages 305-342.
    5. Cheraghali, Hamid & Molnár, Peter & Storsveen, Mattis & Veliqi, Florent, 2024. "The impact of cryptocurrency-related cyberattacks on return, volatility, and trading volume of cryptocurrencies and traditional financial assets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PB).
    6. Süssmuth, Bernd, 2019. "Bitcoin and Web Search Query Dynamics: Is the price driving the hype or is the hype driving the price?," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203566, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Cole, Benjamin M. & Dyhrberg, Anne H. & Foley, Sean & Svec, Jiri, 2022. "Can Bitcoin be Trusted? Quantifying the economic value of blockchain transactions," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    8. 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.
    9. Ahmed, Walid M.A., 2022. "Robust drivers of Bitcoin price movements: An extreme bounds analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    10. Mudassar Hasan & Muhammad Abubakr Naeem & Muhammad Arif & Syed Jawad Hussain Shahzad & Xuan Vinh Vo, 2022. "Liquidity connectedness in cryptocurrency market," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-25, December.
    11. Arun Narayanasamy & Humnath Panta & Rohit Agarwal, 2023. "Relations among Bitcoin Futures, Bitcoin Spot, Investor Attention, and Sentiment," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-24, November.
    12. Al Guindy, Mohamed, 2021. "Cryptocurrency price volatility and investor attention," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 556-570.
    13. Karmakar, Sayar & Demirer, Riza & Gupta, Rangan, 2021. "Bitcoin mining activity and volatility dynamics in the power market," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    14. Hung, Jui-Cheng & Liu, Hung-Chun & Yang, J. Jimmy, 2020. "Improving the realized GARCH’s volatility forecast for Bitcoin with jump-robust estimators," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    15. Hoang, Lai T. & Baur, Dirk G., 2022. "Loaded for bear: Bitcoin private wallets, exchange reserves and prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    16. Bernd Süssmuth, 2022. "The mutual predictability of Bitcoin and web search dynamics," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(3), pages 435-454, April.
    17. Miao Wang & Hong Zhuang, 2022. "Effect of official development assistance on adolescent fertility rate: within-country evidence," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(2), pages 566-590.
    18. Schwartz, Joseph A. & Allen, Samantha L., 2024. "The accumulated impact of direct and indirect workplace violence exposure on mental health and physiological activity among correctional officers," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    19. Lars Hornuf & Paul P. Momtaz & Rachel J. Nam & Ye Yuan, 2023. "Cybercrime on the Ethereum Blockchain," CESifo Working Paper Series 10598, CESifo.
    20. Tihana Škrinjarić, 2019. "Time Varying Spillovers between the Online Search Volume and Stock Returns: Case of CESEE Markets," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-30, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cryptocurrency; Dark web; Trading activity; Privacy coin;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:eee:finlet:v:67:y:2024:i:pb:s154461232400905x. 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/frl .

    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.