IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jrisks/v8y2020i4p129-d454506.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Tale of Two Layers: The Mutual Relationship between Bitcoin and Lightning Network

Author

Listed:
  • Stefano Martinazzi

    (Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, 20121 Milan, Italy)

  • Daniele Regoli

    (Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Intesa Sanpaolo, 20121 Milan, Italy
    The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and should not be attributed to Intesa Sanpaolo or to the author as representative or employee of Intesa Sanpaolo.)

  • Andrea Flori

    (Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, 20121 Milan, Italy)

Abstract

A major concern of the adoption and scalability of Blockchain technologies refers to their efficient use for payments. In this work, we analyze how Lightning Network (LN), which represents a relevant infrastructural novelty, is influenced by the market dynamics of its referring cryptocurrency, namely Bitcoin. In so doing, we focus on how the LN is efficient in performing transactions and we relate this feature to the market conditions of Bitcoin. By applying the Toda–Yamamoto variant of Granger-causality, we note that market conditions of Bitcoin do not significantly influence the topological configuration of the LN. Hence, although the LN represents a second layer on the Bitcoin blockchain, our findings suggest that its efficient functioning does not appear to be related to the simple market performance of its underlying cryptocurrency and, in particular, of its volatile market fluctuations. This result may therefore contribute to shed light on the practical usage of the LN as a blockchain technology to favor transactions.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jrisks:v:8:y:2020:i:4:p:129-:d:454506
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9091/8/4/129/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9091/8/4/129/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Tetsuya Takaishi, 2017. "Statistical properties and multifractality of Bitcoin," Papers 1707.07618, arXiv.org, revised May 2018.
    3. Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Jana, R.K. & Das, Debojyoti & Roubaud, David, 2018. "Informational efficiency of Bitcoin—An extension," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 106-109.
    4. repec:nas:journl:v:115:y:2018:p:1131-1134 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Selgin, George, 2015. "Synthetic commodity money," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 92-99.
    6. 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.
    7. KiHoon Hong, 2017. "Bitcoin as an alternative investment vehicle," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 265-275, December.
    8. Alvarez-Ramirez, J. & Rodriguez, E. & Ibarra-Valdez, C., 2018. "Long-range correlations and asymmetry in the Bitcoin market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 492(C), pages 948-955.
    9. Urquhart, Andrew, 2018. "What causes the attention of Bitcoin?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 40-44.
    10. Aslanidis, Nektarios & Bariviera, Aurelio F. & Perez-Laborda, Alejandro, 2021. "Are cryptocurrencies becoming more interconnected?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    11. Fry, John, 2018. "Booms, busts and heavy-tails: The story of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 225-229.
    12. Peter Gomber & Jascha-Alexander Koch & Michael Siering, 2017. "Digital Finance and FinTech: current research and future research directions," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(5), pages 537-580, July.
    13. Kumhof, Michael & Noone, Clare, 2018. "Central bank digital currencies - design principles and balance sheet implications," Bank of England working papers 725, Bank of England.
    14. Toda, Hiro Y. & Yamamoto, Taku, 1995. "Statistical inference in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1-2), pages 225-250.
    15. Morten Linnemann Bech & Rodney Garratt, 2017. "Central bank cryptocurrencies," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
    16. Manuel Dominguez & Ignacio Lobato, 2003. "Testing the Martingale Difference Hypothesis," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 351-377.
    17. Corbet, Shaen & Meegan, Andrew & Larkin, Charles & Lucey, Brian & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2018. "Exploring the dynamic relationships between cryptocurrencies and other financial assets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 28-34.
    18. Urquhart, Andrew, 2016. "The inefficiency of Bitcoin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 80-82.
    19. KiHoon Hong, 0. "Bitcoin as an alternative investment vehicle," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-11.
    20. Bariviera, Aurelio F., 2017. "The inefficiency of Bitcoin revisited: A dynamic approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 1-4.
    21. 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.
    22. David Yermack, 2017. "Corporate Governance and Blockchains," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(1), pages 7-31.
    23. Al-Yahyaee, Khamis Hamed & Mensi, Walid & Yoon, Seong-Min, 2018. "Efficiency, multifractality, and the long-memory property of the Bitcoin market: A comparative analysis with stock, currency, and gold markets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 228-234.
    24. Takaishi, Tetsuya, 2018. "Statistical properties and multifractality of Bitcoin," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 506(C), pages 507-519.
    25. 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.
    26. Elie Bouri & Luis A. Gil‐Alana & Rangan Gupta & David Roubaud, 2019. "Modelling long memory volatility in the Bitcoin market: Evidence of persistence and structural breaks," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 412-426, January.
    27. Kim, Jae H., 2009. "Automatic variance ratio test under conditional heteroskedasticity," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 179-185, September.
    28. Andrew W. Lo, A. Craig MacKinlay, 1988. "Stock Market Prices do not Follow Random Walks: Evidence from a Simple Specification Test," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 41-66.
    29. Phillip, Andrew & Chan, Jennifer & Peiris, Shelton, 2019. "On long memory effects in the volatility measure of Cryptocurrencies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 95-100.
    30. Claus Dierksmeier & Peter Seele, 2018. "Cryptocurrencies and Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 1-14, September.
    31. Michelangelo Puliga & Andrea Flori & Giuseppe Pappalardo & Alessandro Chessa & Fabio Pammolli, 2016. "The Accounting Network: How Financial Institutions React to Systemic Crisis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-14, October.
    32. Bariviera, Aurelio F. & Basgall, María José & Hasperué, Waldo & Naiouf, Marcelo, 2017. "Some stylized facts of the Bitcoin market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 484(C), pages 82-90.
    33. Alessandro Spelta & Andrea Flori & Nicolò Pecora & Sergey Buldyrev & Fabio Pammolli, 2020. "A behavioral approach to instability pathways in financial markets," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9, December.
    34. Jon Carrick, 2016. "Bitcoin as a Complement to Emerging Market Currencies," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(10), pages 2321-2334, October.
    35. Pieters, Gina & Vivanco, Sofia, 2017. "Financial regulations and price inconsistencies across Bitcoin markets," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-14.
    36. Wei Zhang & Pengfei Wang & Xiao Li & Dehua Shen, 2018. "Some stylized facts of the cryptocurrency market," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(55), pages 5950-5965, November.
    37. James Angel & Douglas McCabe, 2015. "The Ethics of Payments: Paper, Plastic, or Bitcoin?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 603-611, December.
    38. Nadarajah, Saralees & Chu, Jeffrey, 2017. "On the inefficiency of Bitcoin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 6-9.
    39. Katsiampa, Paraskevi, 2019. "Volatility co-movement between Bitcoin and Ether," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 221-227.
    40. Jiang, Yonghong & Nie, He & Ruan, Weihua, 2018. "Time-varying long-term memory in Bitcoin market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 280-284.
    41. Brauneis, Alexander & Mestel, Roland, 2018. "Price discovery of cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin and beyond," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 58-61.
    42. Stefano Martinazzi & Andrea Flori, 2020. "The evolving topology of the Lightning Network: Centralization, efficiency, robustness, synchronization, and anonymity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(1), pages 1-18, January.
    43. Carey Caginalp & Gunduz Caginalp, 2018. "Valuation, Liquidity Price, and Stability of Cryptocurrencies," Papers 1802.09959, arXiv.org.
    44. Dimpfl, Thomas & Peter, Franziska J., 2019. "Group transfer entropy with an application to cryptocurrencies," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 516(C), pages 543-551.
    45. 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.
    46. Beat Weber, 2016. "Bitcoin and the legitimacy crisis of money," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 40(1), pages 17-41.
    47. Rainer Böhme & Nicolas Christin & Benjamin Edelman & Tyler Moore, 2015. "Bitcoin: Economics, Technology, and Governance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 213-238, Spring.
    48. 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.
    49. Dwyer, Gerald P., 2015. "The economics of Bitcoin and similar private digital currencies," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 81-91.
    50. 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.
    51. C. Baek & M. Elbeck, 2015. "Bitcoins as an investment or speculative vehicle? A first look," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 30-34, January.
    52. Vidal-Tomás, David & Ibáñez, Ana M. & Farinós, José E., 2019. "Herding in the cryptocurrency market: CSSD and CSAD approaches," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 181-186.
    53. Baur, Dirk G. & Hong, KiHoon & Lee, Adrian D., 2018. "Bitcoin: Medium of exchange or speculative assets?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 177-189.
    54. Dyhrberg, Anne H. & Foley, Sean & Svec, Jiri, 2018. "How investible is Bitcoin? Analyzing the liquidity and transaction costs of Bitcoin markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 140-143.
    55. Phillip, Andrew & Chan, Jennifer S.K. & Peiris, Shelton, 2018. "A new look at Cryptocurrencies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 6-9.
    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. Rosdiana Sijabat, 2022. "The Association of Economic Growth, Foreign Aid, Foreign Direct Investment and Gross Capital Formation in Indonesia: Evidence from the Toda–Yamamoto Approach," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-22, April.

    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. Nikolaos A. Kyriazis, 2019. "A Survey on Efficiency and Profitable Trading Opportunities in Cryptocurrency Markets," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, April.
    5. Corbet, Shaen & Lucey, Brian & Urquhart, Andrew & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies as a financial asset: A systematic analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 182-199.
    6. Parthajit Kayal & Purnima Rohilla, 2021. "Bitcoin in the economics and finance literature: a survey," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(7), pages 1-21, July.
    7. Panagiotidis, Theodore & Stengos, Thanasis & Vravosinos, Orestis, 2019. "The effects of markets, uncertainty and search intensity on bitcoin returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 220-242.
    8. Omane-Adjepong, Maurice & Alagidede, Paul & Akosah, Nana Kwame, 2019. "Wavelet time-scale persistence analysis of cryptocurrency market returns and volatility," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 514(C), pages 105-120.
    9. Katsiampa, Paraskevi, 2019. "An empirical investigation of volatility dynamics in the cryptocurrency market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 322-335.
    10. Yi, Eojin & Ahn, Kwangwon & Choi, M.Y., 2022. "Cryptocurrency: Not far from equilibrium," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    11. Cynthia Weiyi Cai & Rui Xue & Bi Zhou, 2023. "Cryptocurrency puzzles: a comprehensive review and re-introduction," Journal of Accounting Literature, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 46(1), pages 26-50, June.
    12. Lennart Ante, 2020. "A place next to Satoshi: foundations of blockchain and cryptocurrency research in business and economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1305-1333, August.
    13. Antonakakis, Nikolaos & Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Gabauer, David, 2019. "Cryptocurrency market contagion: Market uncertainty, market complexity, and dynamic portfolios," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 37-51.
    14. 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).
    15. Chu, Jeffrey & Zhang, Yuanyuan & Chan, Stephen, 2019. "The adaptive market hypothesis in the high frequency cryptocurrency market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 221-231.
    16. Bedi, Prateek & Nashier, Tripti, 2020. "On the investment credentials of Bitcoin: A cross-currency perspective," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    17. Manahov, Viktor & Urquhart, Andrew, 2021. "The efficiency of Bitcoin: A strongly typed genetic programming approach to smart electronic Bitcoin markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    18. Christie Smith & Aaron Kumar, 2018. "Crypto‐Currencies – An Introduction To Not‐So‐Funny Moneys," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(5), pages 1531-1559, December.
    19. Carmen López-Martín & Sonia Benito Muela & Raquel Arguedas, 2021. "Efficiency in cryptocurrency markets: new evidence," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 11(3), pages 403-431, September.
    20. Kajtazi, Anton & Moro, Andrea, 2019. "The role of bitcoin in well diversified portfolios: A comparative global study," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 143-157.

    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:gam:jrisks:v:8:y:2020:i:4:p:129-:d:454506. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.