Marketing

Volatility (finance)

Shock (circulatory)

Computer security

Cryptocurrency

Economics

Computer science

Business

Diversification (marketing strategy)

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Monetary economics

Infectious disease (medical specialty)

Internal medicine

Sociology

Financial economics

Medicine

Consumption (sociology)

Hacker

Pandemic

Disease

Pathology

Social science

Economics Letters

Controlling for the polarity and subjectivity of social media data based on the development of the COVID-19 outbreak, we analyse the relationships between the largest cryptocurrencies and such time-varying realisation as to the scale of the economic shock centralised within the rapidly-escalating pandemic. We find evidence of significant growth in both returns and volumes traded, indicating that large cryptocurrencies acted as a store of value during this period of exceptional financial market stress. Further, cryptocurrency returns are found to be significantly influenced by negative sentiment relating to COVID-19. While not only providing diversification benefits for investors, results suggest that these digital assets acted as a safe-haven similar to that of precious metals during historiccrises.

Any port in a storm: Cryptocurrency safe-havens during the COVID-19 pandemic