Cryptocurrency Market Consolidation in 2020--2021

TL;DR

This study analyzes the evolving cross-correlations within the cryptocurrency market and between cryptocurrencies and traditional markets during 2020-2021, revealing increased interconnectedness and changes in market topology over time.

Contribution

It introduces a spectral and topological analysis of detrended cross-correlations in cryptocurrencies, highlighting how market structure and inter-market dependencies evolve during turbulent periods.

Findings

Cryptocurrencies become more strongly cross-correlated over time.

Market topology shifts from centralized to distributed across different time scales.

Higher cross-correlations with traditional markets occur during turbulent periods.

Abstract

Time series of price returns for 80 of the most liquid cryptocurrencies listed on Binance are investigated for the presence of detrended cross-correlations. A spectral analysis of the detrended correlation matrix and a topological analysis of the minimal spanning trees calculated based on this matrix are applied for different positions of a moving window. The cryptocurrencies become more strongly cross-correlated among themselves than they used to be before. The average cross-correlations increase with time on a specific time scale in a way that resembles the Epps effect amplification when going from past to present. The minimal spanning trees also change their topology and, for the short time scales, they become more centralized with increasing maximum node degrees, while for the long time scales they become more distributed, but also more correlated at the same time. Apart from the inter-market dependencies, the detrended cross-correlations between the cryptocurrency market and some traditional markets, like the stock markets, commodity markets, and Forex, are also analyzed. The cryptocurrency market shows higher levels of cross-correlations with the other markets during the same turbulent periods, in which it is strongly cross-correlated itself.