Your Sentiment Matters: A Machine Learning Approach for Predicting Regime Changes in the Cryptocurrency Market

Research suggests that a significant number of those investing in cryptocurrencies do not follow what we might call rational, profit-maximizing behavior. We also know that with the progressive lowering of entry barriers to online trading platforms, an increasing number of inexperienced investors are investing in cryptocurrencies. Increasingly, the behavior of investors contradicts the predictions made by traditional financial models and challenges the assumptions on which such models have previously relied when anticipating returns on cryptocurrency investments. To overcome this issue we develop a random forest model which we train with features stemming from a sentiment analysis performed on data generated by cryptocurrency enthusiasts using Twitter, Google Trends, and Reddit. Our findings show that such features have an important role to play in capturing the behavior of cryptocurrency investors and increase our model’s ability to anticipate regime changes in the cryptocurrency market. Our model outperforms the predictive ability of the Log-Periodic Power Law model—currently, the model most widely-used to predict regime changes in financial markets. These results imply that scholars and practitioners aiming to understand and predict the development of cryptocurrency markets stand to benefit from analyzing social media data generated by cryptocurrency enthusiasts

Wikipedia and Digital Currencies: Interplay Between Collective Attention and Market Performance

The production and consumption of information about Bitcoin and other digital-, or 'crypto'-, currencies have grown together with their market capitalisation. However, a systematic investigation of the relationship between online attention and market dynamics, across multiple digital currencies, is still lacking. Here, we quantify the interplay between the attention towards digital currencies in Wikipedia and their market performance. We consider the entire edit history of currency-related pages, and their view history from July 2015. First, we quantify the evolution of the cryptocurrency presence in Wikipedia by analysing the editorial activity and the network of co-edited pages. We find that a small community of tightly connected editors is responsible for most of the production of information about cryptocurrencies in Wikipedia. Then, we show that a simple trading strategy informed by Wikipedia views performs better, in terms of returns on investment, than classic baseline strategies for most of the covered period. Our results contribute to the recent literature on the interplay between online information and investment markets, and we anticipate it will be of interest for researchers as well as investors

Coin.AI: A Proof-of-Useful-Work Scheme for Blockchain-based Distributed Deep Learning

One decade ago, Bitcoin was introduced, becoming the first cryptocurrency and establishing the concept of "blockchain" as a distributed ledger. As of today, there are many different implementations of cryptocurrencies working over a blockchain, with different approaches and philosophies. However, many of them share one common feature: they require proof-of-work to support the generation of blocks (mining) and, eventually, the generation of money. This proof-of-work scheme often consists in the resolution of a cryptography problem, most commonly breaking a hash value, which can only be achieved through brute-force. The main drawback of proof-of-work is that it requires ridiculously large amounts of energy which do not have any useful outcome beyond supporting the currency. In this paper, we present a theoretical proposal that introduces a proof-of-useful-work scheme to support a cryptocurrency running over a blockchain, which we named Coin.AI. In this system, the mining scheme requires training deep learning models, and a block is only mined when the performance of such model exceeds a threshold. The distributed system allows for nodes to verify the models delivered by miners in an easy way (certainly much more efficiently than the mining process itself), determining when a block is to be generated. Additionally, this paper presents a proof-of-storage scheme for rewarding users that provide storage for the deep learning models, as well as a theoretical dissertation on how the mechanics of the system could be articulated with the ultimate goal of democratizing access to artificial intelligence.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure

Leveraging Explainable AI to Support Cryptocurrency Investors

In the last decade, cryptocurrency trading has attracted the attention of private and professional traders and investors. To forecast the financial markets, algorithmic trading systems based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are becoming more and more established. However, they suffer from the lack of transparency, thus hindering domain experts from directly monitoring the fundamentals behind market movements. This is particularly critical for cryptocurrency investors, because the study of the main factors influencing cryptocurrency prices, including the characteristics of the blockchain infrastructure, is crucial for driving experts’ decisions. This paper proposes a new visual analytics tool to support domain experts in the explanation of AI-based cryptocurrency trading systems. To describe the rationale behind AI models, it exploits an established method, namely SHapley Additive exPlanations, which allows experts to identify the most discriminating features and provides them with an interactive and easy-to-use graphical interface. The simulations carried out on 21 cryptocurrencies over a 8-year period demonstrate the usability of the proposed tool

Forecasting power of neural networks in cryptocurrency domain : Forecasting the prices of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Cardano with Gated Recurrent Unit and Long Short-Term Memory

Machine learning has developed substantially during the past decades and more emphasis has gone to deeper machine learning methods, i.e., artificial neural networks, computer-based networks seeking to mimic how the human brain functions. The groundwork for ANN research was established already in the 1940s and the advancement of ANNs has been ex-tensive. Price prediction of different financial assets is a broadly studied field, as researchers have been trying to create models to predict the volatile and noisy environment of financial markets. Also, ANNs have been placed for these hard prediction tasks, as their advantage is the ability to find non-linear patterns in uncertain and volatile setting. Cryptocurrencies have made their way to the common audience in the past years. After Nakamoto (2008) presented the first proposal for an electronic cash system, Bitcoin, the number of different cryptocurrencies has exceeded over 8 000. Also, the market capitaliza-tion of all cryptocurrencies has grown rapidly, in November 2021 the aggregate market capi-talization topped 3 000 billion U.S. dollars. Cryptocurrencies are not a small concept for closed groups of tech-people, but a phenomenon that concerns also in the governmental level. This study utilizes recurrent neural networks, GRU and LSTM, in the prediction task regarding cryptocurrencies. In addition to trading data, this study uses Google trend-based popularity score to try to better the ANNs accuracy. In addition to the sole prediction task, the study compares the two used RNN architectures and presents the performance and accuracy with selected performance measures. The results show that recurrent neural networks have potential in prediction tasks in the cryptocurrency domain. The constructed models were able to find coherent trends in the price fluctuations but the average differences on actual and predicted prices were compara-tively high, with the introduced simple RNN models. On average, the LSTM model was able to predict the cryptocurrency prices more accurately, but the GRU model showed also great evidence of prediction accuracy in the domain. All in all, the cryptocurrency prediction task is a hard task due to its volatile nature, but his study shows great evidence for ANNs ability to predict cryptocurrency prices. Considering the findings, further research could be applied to more optimized and complex ANN models as the models used in the study were relatively simple one-layer models.Koneoppiminen on kehittynyt erittäin paljon viimeisten vuosikymmenten aikana, painottuen enemmän syvempien koneoppimisen metodien, kuten keinotekoisten neuroverkkojen (ANN), kehitykseen. Keinotekoiset neuroverkot ovat tietokoneeseen perustuvia verkkoja, jotka pyrkivät jäljittelemään ihmisaivojen toimintaa. Keinotekoisten neuroverkkojen tutki-mus on alkanut jo 1940-luvulla, josta lähtien kyseisten verkkojen kehitys on ollut nopeaa. Eri omaisuuslajien hintakehityksen ennustaminen on laajasti tutkittu alue, kun tutkijat ovat yrit-täneet luoda malleja, joilla he ovat pyrkineet ennustamaan epävarmaa rahoitusmarkkinaym-päristöä. Keinotekoiset neuroverot on valjastettu tähän vaikeaan tehtävän, koska niiden selkeänä etuna on kyky löytää epälineaarisia yhteyksiä epävarmassa ja epävakaassa ympäris-tössä. Viime vuosien aikana kryptovaluutat ovat yleistyneet huomattavasti, niin yksityissijoittajien kun institutionaalisten sijoittajien joukossa. Sen jälkeen, kun Nakamoto (2008) esitteli en-simmäisen ehdotuksen käteisen ja valuutan sähköisestä järjestelmästä, kryptovaluuttojen lukumäärä on kasvanut yli 8 000 yksittäiseen valuuttaan. Samaan aikaan kryptovaluuttojen yhteenlaskettu markkina-arvo on kasvanut räjähdysmäisesti, marraskuussa 2021 kokonais-markkina-arvo kasvoi yli 3 000 miljardiin Yhdysvaltojen dollariin. Nykyään kryptovaluutat eivät ole vain konsepti suljetuille teknologiasta kiinnostuneille ryhmille, vaan ilmiö, joka vaikuttaa myös valtiollisella tasolla. Tämä tutkimus hyödyntää toistuvia neuroverkkoja (recurrent neural networks), GRU ja LSTM, kryptovaluuttojen hintakehityksen ennustamisessa. Kaupankäyntitietojen lisäksi, tut-kimuksessa käytetään Googlen hakutiedusteluihn perustuvaa Google Trend suosiomittaria, neuroverkkojen tarkkuuden parantamiseksi. Kryptovaluuttojen hintakehityksen ennustami-sen lisäksi, tutkimuksessa verrataan kahta RNN-rakennetta ja esitellään molempien verkko-jen tarkkuutta sekä verrataan sitä valituilla tarkkuusmittareilla. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat, että yksinkertaisilla RNN-rakenteilla on selkeää potentiaalia kryptovaluuttojen hintakehityksen ennustamisessa. Tutkimuksessa luodut mallit löytävät johdonmukaisia ja selkeitä trendejä, mutta keskimääräiset erotukset todellisilla ja ennuste-tuilla hinnoilla oli suhteellisesti korkeat. Tutkituista malleista LSTM-malli tuottaa keskimäärin tarkempia ennusteita kuin GRU-malli, mutta erot mallien tarkkuuksissa ovat pienet. Kokonai-suudessaan kryptovaluuttojen hintojen ennustaminen on vaikea tehtävä kryptovaluut-tamarkkinan epävakaan luonteen johdosta, tämä tutkimus kuitenkin osoittaa näyttöä keino-tekoisten neuroverkkojen kyvystä ennustaa kryptovaluuttojen hintoja. Ottaen huomioon tutkimuksen löydökset, lisätutkimusta voisi soveltaa tarkemmin optimoituihin ja kompleksi-simpiin keinotekoisiin neuroverkkoihin, sillä tässä tutkimuksessa käytetyt mallit olivat suh-teellisen yksinkertaisia

Применение глубокого обучения для прогнозирования цен на криптовалюты и их взаимосвязь с адекватностью рынка (прикладное исследование на примере биткоина)

redicting currency rates is important, for everyone who is trading and trying to build an investment portfolio from a range of crypto currencies. It is not subject to the same restrictions as fiat currencies. In this study, we seek to predict the exchange rate of BIT-COIN against the US dollar. The short-term data (365 observations) is processed using the LSTM model as one of the neural network models. Modeling is conducted by training a sample size of 67%, taking into account sharp fluctuations in the price of trade and a certain level of market efficiency. The GARCH model is used to select appropriate historical periods for how the LSTM model works and to test proficiency at the weak, semi-strong, and strong levels. The data series obtained from the website (Investing.com) have been processed. The researchers have found that the performance of the neural network improves as the EPOCH value increases with a training (research) period of 50 days before, which is consistent with the results of the proficiency test at the weak level. It agrees with the results of the sufficiency test at the weak level, which indicates that in the case under study (the Bitcoin market is effective at the weak level). It is advised that crypto-currency investors rely more on the historical trend of the price of the currency than on its current price, taking advantage of the artificial neural network model (LSTM) in dealing with little data of high volatility.Прогнозирование курсов валют важно для всех, кто занимается трейдингом и пытается построить инвестиционный портфель из ряда криптовалют. На них не распространяются те же ограничения, что и на фиатные валюты. Цель исследования — спрогнозировать курс BITCOIN по отношению к доллару США. Краткосрочные данные (365 наблюдений) обработаны с помощью модели LSTM как одной из нейросетевых моделей. Моделирование проведено путем обучения выборки объемом 67% с учетом резких колебаний цены торгов и определенного уровня эффективности рынка. Модель GARCH использована для выбора подходящих исторических периодов для определения того, как работает модель LSTM, и для проверки эффективности на слабом, полусильном и сильном уровнях. Обработаны ряды данных, полученных с веб-сайта (Investing.com). Авторы обнаружили, что производительность нейронной сети улучшается по мере увеличения значения EPOCH при периоде обучения (исследования) в 50 дней, что согласуется с результатами проверки мастерства на слабом уровне. Это согласуется с результатами теста на достаточность на слабом уровне, что свидетельствует о том, что в исследуемом случае рынок биткоина эффективен на слабом уровне. Сделан вывод, что криптовалютным инвесторам лучше больше полагаться на исторический тренд цены валюты, чем на ее текущую цену, используя преимущества модели искусственной нейронной сети (LSTM) при работе с небольшими данными высокой волатильности

Data analysis in deep learning classification models, a financial application for bitcoin

Uses for machine learning methods have dramatically increased over the last decade. With a diverse array of industries making use of it, it is no surprise that the financial industry has been one of its first adopters and pioneer in its development. However, precise measurements must be considered when dealing with financial data extracted from the market. This work project is an execution of Professor Marcos López de Prado (Cornell University)data analysis techniques for financial machine learning algorithms. The prepared data was then used as an input in a deep neural network for multi class classification, with the objective of making price direction predictions. Bitcoin was the selected financial instrument for this study, given its high volatility and its virtually global accessibility