Industry Herding in Crypto Assets

Yuan Zhao* (Corresponding Author), Nan Liu, Wanpeng Li

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate if herd behaviour is present in crypto assets at industry level. Using price information extracted from coinmarketcap.com between 29 April 2013 and 9 May 2022, we find evidence of herding and reverse herding in the crypto assets market. Concentrated periods of herding and reverse herding are particularly evident in the January 2020-April 2022 Covid period. At industry level, herding is more profound in large sectors with higher volatility. In smaller sectors where ventures are backed by ‘real assets’, very short periods of herding with marginal significance are
detected. Reverse herding is present in all industries except Real Estate between June 2021 and May 2022, implying that strategies such as excessive ‘flight to quality’ or/and token picking are at play during the recent crypto crash. We also detect varying asymmetric herding at industry level. This paper further examines the factors that drive such industry herding and reverse herding in the crypto assets market, and our results show that industry concentration and investor sentiments contribute to the probability of herding/reverse herding. Our study provides further insights to the forces that drive the dispersion in crypto assets prices and contribute to the behavioural studies of the crypto market.
Original languageEnglish
Article number102335
Number of pages15
JournalInternational Review of Financial Analysis
Volume84
Early online date2 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2022

Keywords

  • Asymmetric herding
  • Crypto assets
  • Industry herding
  • Investor behaviour
  • Sentiment

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