Fear Sentiment, Uncertainty, and Bitcoin Price Dynamics: The Case of COVID-19

Conghui Chen, Lanlan Liu, Ningru Zhao*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

235 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of fear sentiment caused by the coronavirus pandemic on Bitcoin price dynamics. We construct a new proxy for coronavirus fear sentiment using hourly Google search queries on coronavirus-related words. The results show that market volatility has been exacerbated by fear sentiment as the result of an increase in search interest in coronavirus. Moreover, we find that negative Bitcoin returns and high trading volume can be explained by fear sentiment regarding the coronavirus. Our results also show that Bitcoin fails to act as a safe haven during the pandemic.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2298-2309
Number of pages12
JournalEmerging Markets Finance and Trade
Volume56
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Aug 2020
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Bitcoin price dynamics
  • Coronavirus
  • fear sentiment
  • Google search volume

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