Asymmetric tail dependence modeling, with application to cryptocurrency market data

TL;DR

This paper introduces a flexible copula model to analyze asymmetric tail dependence in cryptocurrency markets, capturing evolving extremal dependence and improving risk assessment for portfolio diversification.

Contribution

It develops a novel copula model that distinguishes asymptotic dependence and independence in tails, with methods for inference and dynamic dependence analysis over time.

Findings

Lower tail dependence between cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin and Ethereum, has strengthened over time.

The proposed model outperforms existing copulas in fitting cryptocurrency data.

Tail dependence dynamics reveal a transition from independence to dependence in recent years.

Abstract

Since the inception of Bitcoin in 2008, cryptocurrencies have played an increasing role in the world of e-commerce, but the recent turbulence in the cryptocurrency market in 2018 has raised some concerns about their stability and associated risks. For investors, it is crucial to uncover the dependence relationships between cryptocurrencies for a more resilient portfolio diversification. Moreover, the stochastic behavior in both tails is important, as long positions are sensitive to a decrease in prices (lower tail), while short positions are sensitive to an increase in prices (upper tail). In order to assess both risk types, we develop in this paper a flexible copula model which is able to distinctively capture asymptotic dependence or independence in its lower and upper tails simultaneously. Our proposed model is parsimonious and smoothly bridges (in each tail) both extremal dependence classes in the interior of the parameter space. Inference is performed using a full or censored likelihood approach, and we investigate by simulation the estimators' efficiency under three different censoring schemes which reduce the impact of non-extreme observations. We also develop a local likelihood approach to capture the temporal dynamics of extremal dependence among two leading cryptocurrencies. We here apply our model to historical closing prices of five leading cryotocurrencies, which share most of the cryptocurrency market capitalizations. The results show that our proposed copula model outperforms alternative copula models and that the lower tail dependence level between most pairs of leading cryptocurrencies -- and in particular Bitcoin and Ethereum -- has become stronger over time, smoothly transitioning from an asymptotic independence regime to an asymptotic dependence regime in recent years, whilst the upper tail has been relatively more stable overall at a weaker dependence level.