Bitcoin price manipulation: evidence from intraday orders and trades. Issue 2 (19th January 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hu, Bill; Hwang, Joon Ho; Jain, Chinmay; Washam, Jim
• Is Part Of: Applied economics letters. Volume 29:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 140
• Page End: 144
• Publication Date: 2022-01-19
• Subjects: Price manipulation -- bitcoin -- order imbalance -- microstructure; D40 -- G14; Economics -- Periodicals; Economics, Mathematical -- Periodicals; 330
• DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2020.1861183
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1350-4851

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We analyse 519.4 million Bitcoin orders placed on Gemini Exchange during January 2016-August 2019 and find limit orders dominate at 99.92%. We document order-based evidence of price manipulation during the Bitcoin bubble in late 2017, when the daily number of market orders during the bubble period more than triples the overall daily average. The changes in both prices and liquidity satisfy two criteria specified in Kyle and Viswanathan (2008) for the price manipulation definition. Moreover, we find a significant increase in market order imbalance associated with price manipulations modelled in Jarrow, Protter and Roch (2012).