IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/122266.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are cryptos different? Evidence from retail trading

Author

Listed:
  • Kogana, Shimon
  • Makarov, Igor
  • Niessnerc, Marina
  • Schoar, Antoinette

Abstract

Trading in cryptocurrencies grew rapidly over the last decade, dominated by retail investors. Using data from eToro, we show that retail traders are contrarian in stocks and gold, yet the same traders follow a momentum-like strategy in cryptocurrencies. The differences are not explained by individual characteristics, investor composition, inattention, differences in fees, or preference for lottery-like assets. We conjecture that retail investors have a model where cryptocurrency price changes affect the likelihood of future widespread adoption, which leads them to further update their price expectations in the same direction.

Suggested Citation

  • Kogana, Shimon & Makarov, Igor & Niessnerc, Marina & Schoar, Antoinette, 2024. "Are cryptos different? Evidence from retail trading," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 122266, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:122266
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/122266/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andreas Fuster & Benjamin Hebert & David Laibson, 2012. "Natural Expectations, Macroeconomic Dynamics, and Asset Pricing," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 1-48.
    2. Jeff Dominitz & Charles F. Manski, 2011. "Measuring and interpreting expectations of equity returns," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 352-370, April.
    3. Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2020. "Trading and arbitrage in cryptocurrency markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 293-319.
    4. Maarten Meeuwis & Jonathan A. Parker & Antoinette Schoar & Duncan Simester, 2022. "Belief Disagreement and Portfolio Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(6), pages 3191-3247, December.
    5. Raphael Auer & Giulio Cornelli & Sebastian Doerr & Jon Frost & Leonardo Gambacorta, 2022. "Crypto trading and Bitcoin prices: evidence from a new database of retail adoption," BIS Working Papers 1049, Bank for International Settlements.
    6. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2009. "Measuring the Financial Sophistication of Households," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 393-398, May.
    7. Ron Kaniel & Gideon Saar & Sheridan Titman, 2008. "Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(1), pages 273-310, February.
    8. John M. Griffin & Amin Shams, 2020. "Is Bitcoin Really Untethered?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(4), pages 1913-1964, August.
    9. Harrison Hong & José Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2006. "Asset Float and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1073-1117, June.
    10. Matteo Benetton & Giovanni Compiani, 2020. "Investors’ Beliefs and Asset Prices: A Structural Model of Cryptocurrency Demand," Working Papers 2020-107, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    11. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    12. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:1839-1885 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Samuel M. Hartzmark, 2015. "The Worst, the Best, Ignoring All the Rest: The Rank Effect and Trading Behavior," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(4), pages 1024-1059.
    14. Vimal Balasubramaniam & John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai & Benjamin Ranish, 2023. "Who Owns What? A Factor Model for Direct Stockholding," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1545-1591, June.
    15. Lin William Cong & Ye Li & Neng Wang, 2021. "Tokenomics: Dynamic Adoption and Valuation [The demand of liquid assets with uncertain lumpy expenditures]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(3), pages 1105-1155.
    16. Barberis, Nicholas & Greenwood, Robin & Jin, Lawrence & Shleifer, Andrei, 2018. "Extrapolation and bubbles," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(2), pages 203-227.
    17. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1775-1798 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Barberis, Nicholas & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1998. "A model of investor sentiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 307-343, September.
    19. Brav, Alon & Cain, Matthew & Zytnick, Jonathon, 2022. "Retail shareholder participation in the proxy process: Monitoring, engagement, and voting," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 492-522.
    20. Stefano Giglio & Matteo Maggiori & Johannes Stroebel & Stephen Utkus, 2021. "Five Facts about Beliefs and Portfolios," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(5), pages 1481-1522, May.
    21. Peng, Lin & Xiong, Wei, 2006. "Investor attention, overconfidence and category learning," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 563-602, June.
    22. Nicholas Barberis & Wei Xiong, 2009. "What Drives the Disposition Effect? An Analysis of a Long‐Standing Preference‐Based Explanation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 751-784, April.
    23. Jose A. Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2003. "Overconfidence and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1183-1219, December.
    24. Raphael Auer & Stijn Claessens, 2018. "Regulating cryptocurrencies: assessing market reactions," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
    25. Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2020. "Trading and arbitrage in cryptocurrency markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100409, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    26. Athey, Susan & Parashkevov, Ivo & Sarukkai, Vishnu & Xia, Jing, 2016. "Bitcoin Pricing, Adoption, and Usage: Theory and Evidence," Research Papers 3469, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    27. Darren Aiello & Scott R. Baker & Tetyana Balyuk & Marco Di Maggio & Mark J. Johnson & Jason D. Kotter, 2023. "Who Invests in Crypto? Wealth, Financial Constraints, and Risk Attitudes," NBER Working Papers 31856, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Robin Greenwood & Andrei Shleifer, 2014. "Expectations of Returns and Expected Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(3), pages 714-746.
    29. Turan G. Bali & David Hirshleifer & Lin Peng & Yi Tang, 2021. "Attention, Social Interaction, and Investor Attraction to Lottery Stocks," NBER Working Papers 29543, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    30. Campbell, John Y. & Viceira, Luis M., 2002. "Strategic Asset Allocation: Portfolio Choice for Long-Term Investors," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198296942, December.
    31. Harris, Milton & Raviv, Artur, 1993. "Differences of Opinion Make a Horse Race," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(3), pages 473-506.
    32. Todd Mitton & Keith Vorkink, 2007. "Equilibrium Underdiversification and the Preference for Skewness," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(4), pages 1255-1288.
    33. Erik Eyster & Matthew Rabin, 2010. "Naïve Herding in Rich-Information Settings," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 221-243, November.
    34. Grinblatt, Mark & Keloharju, Matti, 2000. "The investment behavior and performance of various investor types: a study of Finland's unique data set," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 43-67, January.
    35. Yukun Liu & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2021. "Risks and Returns of Cryptocurrency," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(6), pages 2689-2727.
    36. Da, Zhi & Huang, Xing & Jin, Lawrence J., 2021. "Extrapolative beliefs in the cross-section: What can we learn from the crowds?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 175-196.
    37. Michael Sockin & Wei Xiong, 2023. "Decentralization through Tokenization," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(1), pages 247-299, February.
    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. Matteo Benetton & Giovanni Compiani, 2024. "Investors’ Beliefs and Cryptocurrency Prices," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 197-236.
    2. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    3. Luciano Somoza & Antoine Didisheim, 2022. "The End of the Crypto-Diversification Myth," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 22-53, Swiss Finance Institute.
    4. Liu, Hongqi & Peng, Cameron & Xiong, Wei A. & Xiong, Wei, 2022. "Taming the bias zoo," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 716-741.
    5. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    6. Barber, Brad M. & Odean, Terrance, 2013. "The Behavior of Individual Investors," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1533-1570, Elsevier.
    7. Fotini Economou & Konstantinos Gavriilidis & Bartosz Gebka & Vasileios Kallinterakis, 2022. "Feedback trading: a review of theory and empirical evidence," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 15(4), pages 429-476, February.
    8. Bruno Biais & Christophe Bisière & Matthieu Bouvard & Catherine Casamatta & Albert J. Menkveld, 2023. "Equilibrium Bitcoin Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(2), pages 967-1014, April.
    9. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk & Caporin, Massimiliano & Cepni, Oguzhan, 2024. "Not all words are equal: Sentiment and jumps in the cryptocurrency market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    10. Liu, Hongqi & Peng, Cameron & Wei, Xiong & Wei, Xiong, 2022. "Taming the bias zoo," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 109301, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Vimal Balasubramaniam & John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai & Benjamin Ranish, 2023. "Who Owns What? A Factor Model for Direct Stockholding," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1545-1591, June.
    12. Wei Xiong, 2013. "Bubbles, Crises, and Heterogeneous Beliefs," NBER Working Papers 18905, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Nicolás Magner & Nicolás Hardy, 2022. "Cryptocurrency Forecasting: More Evidence of the Meese-Rogoff Puzzle," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(13), pages 1-27, July.
    14. Hur, Jungshik & Singh, Vivek, 2019. "How do disposition effect and anchoring bias interact to impact momentum in stock returns?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 238-256.
    15. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, June.
    16. Arkorful, Gideon Bruce & Chen, Haiqiang & Gu, Ming & Liu, Xiaoqun, 2023. "What can we learn from the convenience yield of Bitcoin? Evidence from the COVID-19 crisis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 141-153.
    17. Bennett, Donyetta & Mekelburg, Erik & Williams, T.H., 2023. "BeFi meets DeFi: A behavioral finance approach to decentralized finance asset pricing," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    18. Andreas Hackethal & Tobin Hanspal & Dominique M Lammer & Kevin Rink, 2022. "The Characteristics and Portfolio Behavior of Bitcoin Investors: Evidence from Indirect Cryptocurrency Investments [The investor in structured retail products: advice driven or gambling oriented]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(4), pages 855-898.
    19. Karau, Sören, 2023. "Monetary policy and Bitcoin," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    20. Graf von Luckner, Clemens & Reinhart, Carmen M. & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2023. "Decrypting new age international capital flows," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 104-122.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cryptocurrencies; FinTech; retail trading; social finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ehl:lserod:122266. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.