The Predictive Power of Social Media within Cryptocurrency Markets

Blockchain technology has generated a great deal of interest in recent years, as has the associated area of cryptocurrency trading, not only on the part of individuals but also from traditional financial institutions and hedge funds. However, there is currently limited knowledge as to how to predict future cryptocurrency price movements. This thesis investigates whether online indicators, especially from social media, can be harnessed to predict cryptocurrency price movements – to achieve this, three experiments are conducted. The first experiment analyses time-evolving relationships between chosen online indicators and associated cryptocurrency prices; relationships are considered over short, medium and long-term durations. The work introduces and evaluates several influential factors from the social media platform Reddit, a platform previously unexplored within cryptocurrency prediction literature. It is found that medium and longer-term relationships strengthen in bubble market regimes (compared to non-bubble regimes). The second experiment utilises these promising new factors as inputs to a predictive model. The model used was originally designed to detect influenza epidemic outbreaks, and is repurposed here to model epidemic-like cryptocurrency price bubbles, demonstrating how social media can be used to track the epidemic spread of an investment idea. The predictive power of the model is validated through the generation of a profitable trading strategy. Having considered quantitative count-based metrics in the previous chapters (e.g. posts per day, submissions per day, new authors per day etc.), the next experiment considers the content of social media submissions. More specifically, the third experiment analyses social media submission content to investigate whether certain topics of discussion precede upcoming shorter term (positive or negative) price movements. Information evidencing time-varying interest in various topics is retrieved from social media submissions, upon which hidden interactions with the associated cryptocurrency price are deciphered. It is found that certain topics precede major positive or negative price movements, and also additional analysis shows that certain discussion topics exhibit longer-term relationships with cryptocurrency market prices

Innovation and Challenges of Blockchain in Banking: A Scientometric View

Blockchain has been gaining focus in research and development for diverse industries in recent years. Nevertheless, innovations that impact to the banking nurture a potential for disruptive impact globally for economic reasons; however it has received less scholarly attention. Hence the effect of blockchain technologies on banking industry is systematically reviewed. The relevant literature is extracted from Scopus, Web of Science and bibliometric techniques are applied. While a bulk of earlier papers focuses only on bit coins, a broader framework is envisaged that synthesizes interdisciplinary thematic areas for advancement; hence novelty in current work. A few practical and theoretical implications for stakeholders in view of technology, law and management are discussed