IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jrpoli/v85y2023ipbs0301420723002507.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the pricing effects of bitcoin mining in the fossil fuel market: The case of coal

Author

Listed:
  • Sibande, Xolani
  • Demirer, Riza
  • Balcilar, Mehmet
  • Gupta, Rangan

Abstract

This study provides novel insight to the role of cryptocurrency mining activities on fossil fuel price dynamics with a particular focus on the coal market. Despite the global climate agenda, coal remains a key energy source for economic growth as it is the dominant fuel for power generation globally. At the same time, the unprecedented growth in the trading and mining of cryptocurrencies has put extra pressure on this market as the mining process consumes vast amounts of energy fuelled predominantly by coal. Hypothesizing that there is a causal link in the direction of coal prices from Bitcoin mining activities due to its effect on electricity consumption, we utilize static and time-varying Granger causality tests to explore the causal linkages between Bitcoin electricity consumption and coal prices as the issue has significant implications for economic development. The results reveal a time-varying causal link from the coal price to Bitcoin mining electricity consumption, suggesting that the coal price is in fact a constraint on mining activities. At the same time, as hypothesized, the evidence in the opposite direction is found to be even stronger, suggesting that electricity consumption from Bitcoin mining activities impacts the coal price. This interplay suggests that electricity consumption from Bitcoin mining activities may be larger than current estimates, highlighting the importance of policy mechanisms to mitigate the possible negative effects on the economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Sibande, Xolani & Demirer, Riza & Balcilar, Mehmet & Gupta, Rangan, 2023. "On the pricing effects of bitcoin mining in the fossil fuel market: The case of coal," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PB).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:85:y:2023:i:pb:s0301420723002507
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2023.103539
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420723002507
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resourpol.2023.103539?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joëts, Marc & Mignon, Valérie, 2012. "On the link between forward energy prices: A nonlinear panel cointegration approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 1170-1175.
    2. Rossi, Barbara, 2005. "Optimal Tests For Nested Model Selection With Underlying Parameter Instability," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(5), pages 962-990, October.
    3. Karmakar, Sayar & Demirer, Riza & Gupta, Rangan, 2021. "Bitcoin mining activity and volatility dynamics in the power market," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    4. Chen, Zhan-Ming, 2014. "Inflationary effect of coal price change on the Chinese economy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 301-309.
    5. Hao, Yu & Zhang, Zong-Yong & Liao, Hua & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2015. "China’s farewell to coal: A forecast of coal consumption through 2020," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 444-455.
    6. Li, Jianglong & Xie, Chunping & Long, Houyin, 2019. "The roles of inter-fuel substitution and inter-market contagion in driving energy prices: evidences from China’s coal market," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 102540, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Barbara Rossi & Yiru Wang, 2019. "Vector autoregressive-based Granger causality test in the presence of instabilities," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 19(4), pages 883-899, December.
    8. Lu, Feng-bin & Hong, Yong-miao & Wang, Shou-yang & Lai, Kin-keung & Liu, John, 2014. "Time-varying Granger causality tests for applications in global crude oil markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 289-298.
    9. Narjes Zamani, 2016. "The Relationship between Crude Oil and Coal Markets: A New Approach," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 6(4), pages 801-805.
    10. Liu, Ming-Hua & Margaritis, Dimitris & Zhang, Yang, 2013. "Market-driven coal prices and state-administered electricity prices in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 167-175.
    11. Chia-Lin Chang & Michael McAleer & Guangdong Zuo, 2017. "Volatility Spillovers and Causality of Carbon Emissions, Oil and Coal Spot and Futures for the EU and USA," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-22, October.
    12. Khan, Khalid & Su, Chi-Wei & Rehman, Ashfaq U., 2021. "Do multiple bubbles exist in coal price?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    13. Timothy Cogley & Thomas J. Sargent, 2005. "Drift and Volatilities: Monetary Policies and Outcomes in the Post WWII U.S," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), pages 262-302, April.
    14. Li, Dongxin & Hong, Yanran & Wang, Lu & Xu, Pengfei & Pan, Zhigang, 2022. "Extreme risk transmission among bitcoin and crude oil markets," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    15. Hong, Yongmiao, 2001. "A test for volatility spillover with application to exchange rates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 103(1-2), pages 183-224, July.
    16. Johannes Sedlmeir & Hans Ulrich Buhl & Gilbert Fridgen & Robert Keller, 2020. "The Energy Consumption of Blockchain Technology: Beyond Myth," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 62(6), pages 599-608, December.
    17. Shuping Shi & Peter C. B. Phillips & Stan Hurn, 2018. "Change Detection and the Causal Impact of the Yield Curve," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(6), pages 966-987, November.
    18. Vipin Arora & Shuping Shi, 2016. "Energy consumption and economic growth in the United States," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(39), pages 3763-3773, August.
    19. Engle, Robert, 2002. "Dynamic Conditional Correlation: A Simple Class of Multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(3), pages 339-350, July.
    20. Swanson, Norman R., 1998. "Money and output viewed through a rolling window," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 455-474, May.
    21. Wang, Qiang & Li, Rongrong, 2016. "Journey to burning half of global coal: Trajectory and drivers of China׳s coal use," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 341-346.
    22. John Coglianese, Todd D. Gerarden, and James H. Stock, 2020. "The Effects of Fuel Prices, Environmental Regulations, and Other Factors on U.S. Coal Production, 2008-2016," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    23. Michel Rauchs & Garrick Hileman, 2017. "Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study," Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance Reports 201704-gcbs, Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    24. Lin, Boqiang & Li, Jianglong, 2015. "Analyzing cost of grid-connection of renewable energy development in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1373-1382.
    25. Chun Jiang & Yi-Fan Wu & Xiao-Lin Li & Xin Li, 2020. "Time-frequency Connectedness between Coal Market Prices, New Energy Stock Prices and CO 2 Emissions Trading Prices in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-17, April.
    26. Shuping Shi & Stan Hurn & Peter C B Phillips, 2020. "Causal Change Detection in Possibly Integrated Systems: Revisiting the Money–Income Relationship [Energy Consumption and Economic Growth in the United States]," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Society for Financial Econometrics, vol. 18(1), pages 158-180.
    27. Xiaopeng Guo & Yanan Wei & Jiahai Yuan, 2016. "Will the Steam Coal Price Rebound under the New Economy Normalcy in China?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-13, September.
    28. Oberndorfer, Ulrich, 2009. "Energy prices, volatility, and the stock market: Evidence from the Eurozone," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5787-5795, December.
    29. Granger, C. W. J., 1980. "Testing for causality : A personal viewpoint," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 329-352, May.
    30. Guo, Jin & Zheng, Xinye & Chen, Zhan-Ming, 2016. "How does coal price drive up inflation? Reexamining the relationship between coal price and general price level in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 265-276.
    31. Li, Jianglong & Xie, Chunping & Long, Houyin, 2019. "The roles of inter-fuel substitution and inter-market contagion in driving energy prices: Evidences from China’s coal market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    32. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    33. Thoma, Mark A., 1994. "Subsample instability and asymmetries in money-income causality," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1-2), pages 279-306.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Wei & Liu, Jie & Peng, Wenqing & Zhao, Yanlin & Luo, Shilin & Wan, Wen & Wu, Qiuhong & Wang, Yuanzeng & Li, Shengnan & Tang, Xiaoyu & Zeng, Xiantao & Wu, Xiaofan & Zhou, Yu & Xie, Senlin, 2023. "Aging deterioration of mechanical properties on coal-rock combinations considering hydro-chemical corrosion," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).

    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. Wang, Tiantian & Wu, Fei & Dickinson, David & Zhao, Wanli, 2024. "Energy price bubbles and extreme price movements: Evidence from China's coal market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    2. Bathia, Deven & Demirer, Riza & Gupta, Rangan & Kotzé, Kevin, 2021. "Unemployment fluctuations and currency returns in the United Kingdom: Evidence from over one and a half century of data," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    3. Li, Zheng-Zheng & Su, Chi-Wei & Chang, Tsangyao & Lobonţ, Oana-Ramona, 2022. "Policy-driven or market-driven? Evidence from steam coal price bubbles in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Hong, Yanran & Wang, Lu & Ye, Xiaoqing & Zhang, Yaojie, 2022. "Dynamic asymmetric impact of equity market uncertainty on energy markets: A time-varying causality analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 535-546.
    5. Hicham Ayad & Ousama Ben-Salha & Miloud Ouafi, 2023. "Do oil prices predict the exchange rate in Algeria? Time, frequency, and time‐varying Granger causality analysis," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3545-3566, October.
    6. Li, Jianglong & Xie, Chunping & Long, Houyin, 2019. "The roles of inter-fuel substitution and inter-market contagion in driving energy prices: Evidences from China’s coal market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    7. Hong, Yun & Zhang, Rushan & Zhang, Feipeng, 2024. "Time-varying causality impact of economic policy uncertainty on stock market returns: Global evidence from developed and emerging countries," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    8. Fromentin, Vincent, 2022. "Time-varying causality between stock prices and macroeconomic fundamentals: Connection or disconnection?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    9. Mohamad, Azhar & Fromentin, Vincent, 2023. "Herd and causality dynamics between energy commodities and ethical investment: Evidence from the different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    10. Fromentin, Vincent & Pecchioli, Bruno & Moroz, David, 2024. "Time-varying causality among whisky, wine, and equity markets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    11. Luo, Keyu & Ye, Yong, 2024. "How responsive are retail electricity prices to crude oil fluctuations in the US? Time-varying and asymmetric perspectives," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    12. Fan, Xinghua & Wang, Li & Li, Shasha, 2016. "Predicting chaotic coal prices using a multi-layer perceptron network model," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 86-92.
    13. Semei Coronado & Rangan Gupta & Saban Nazlioglu & Omar Rojas, 2023. "Time‐varying causality between bond and oil markets of the United States: Evidence from over one and half centuries of data," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 2239-2247, July.
    14. Mustafa Kocoglu & Phouphet Kyophilavong & Ashar Awan & So Young Lim, 2023. "Time-varying causality between oil price and exchange rate in five ASEAN economies," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 1007-1031, April.
    15. Ahmed, Walid M.A., 2018. "On the interdependence of natural gas and stock markets under structural breaks," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 149-161.
    16. Adeosun, Opeoluwa Adeniyi & Tabash, Mosab I. & Anagreh, Suhaib, 2022. "Oil price and economic performance: Additional evidence from advanced economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    17. Seyi Saint Akadiri & Andrew Adewale Alola & Ahdi Noomen Ajmi, 2022. "Trilemma of pandemic-related health emergency, economic policy uncertainty and partisan conflict in the United States: A time-varying analysis evidence," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 46(4), pages 771-784, October.
    18. Ding, Lili & Zhao, Zhongchao & Han, Meng, 2021. "Probability density forecasts for steam coal prices in China: The role of high-frequency factors," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    19. Kuruppuarachchi, Duminda & Premachandra, I.M., 2016. "Information spillover dynamics of the energy futures market sector: A novel common factor approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 277-294.
    20. Mehmet Ulug & Sayım Işık & Mehmet Mert, 2023. "The effectiveness of ultra-loose monetary policy in a high inflation economy: a time-varying causality analysis for Turkey," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 2855-2887, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Time-varying granger causality; Crypo-currency market; Commodity markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C58 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Financial Econometrics
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • Q02 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Commodity Market

    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:jrpoli:v:85:y:2023:i:pb:s0301420723002507. 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/inca/30467 .

    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.