THE INFLUENCE OF THE TONALITY OF NEWS ON THE EXCHANGE RATE OF BITCOIN

The authors assess the impact of the emotional tonality of bitcoin news on its exchange rate. In particular, we studied the hypothesis of the impact of the readability index of the news text on the volatility of bitcoin. Despite the fact that excessive volatility threatens bitcoin not to become a successful currency, many scientists are interested in the determinants of such volatility. Factors such as speculative investments or the attention of the society are the drivers of the volatility of the exchange rate of bitcoin. In this regard, the question of studying the impact of news on the bitcoin exchange rate is relevant. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of the emotional tonality of bitcoin news on its exchange rate. The empirical base of the study was quite extensive since it includes more than 1330 news from the Thomson Reuters information base for the period from 19.08.2011 to 16.08.2016 on the bitcoin market. The research methodology includes the sentiment analysis conducted by using the dictionary MacDonald and Loughran and also the analysis of the interdependence of time series-based causal analysis using the test of Granger causation. We present three hypotheses about the impact of news on the bitcoin exchange rate. During the study, two of them were confirmed. We proved the first hypothesis that the negative news had a more significant impact than positive ones, taking into account the five time-lags. The second hypothesis about the impact of positive tonality in the news on the bitcoin exchange rate, using the Granger test for causation, was not confirmed, since the positive values of this test were obtained in two time-lags out of five. We can confirm that the third hypothesis was proved — the high readability index has an impact on the bitcoin volatility for the entire studied period, taking into account all five time-lags. Thus, the assumption about the impact of the emotional tonality of news on the bitcoin exchange rate can be confirmed.

bitcoin, cryptocurrency, text analysis, news, sentiment analysis of news, digital money, news impact, bitcoin volatility

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