Herding behaviour in digital currency markets: An integrated survey and empirical estimation

Abstract

This paper reviews the empirical literature on the highly popular phenomenon of herding behaviour in the markets of digital currencies. Furthermore, a comparison takes place with outcomes from earlier studies about traditional financial assets. Moreover, we empirically investigate herding behaviour of 240 cryptocurrencies during bull and bear markets. The present survey suggests that empirical findings about whether herding phenomena have made a significant appearance or not in cryptocurrency markets are split. The Cross-sectional absolute deviations (CSAD) and Cross-sectional standard deviations (CSSD) approaches for measuring herding tendencies are found to be the most popular. Different behaviour is detected in bull periods compared to bear markets. Nevertheless, evidence from primary studies indicates that herding is stronger during extreme situations rather than in normal conditions. However, our empirical estimations reveal that herding behaviour is evident only in bull markets. These findings cast light on and provide a roadmap for investment decisions with modern forms of liquidity. Bitcoin, Digital currency, Cryptocurrency, Herding, Survey; Finance; Behavioral economics; International economics; Money; Pricing. © 2020