Feb 20
[Delio] The US Federal Reserve Bank of New York report shows Bitcoin is unaffected by most macroeconomic news
The US Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that Bitcoin is immune to all U.S. macroeconomic and monetary policy news except inflation, unlike other asset classes including traditional assets such as gold, silver, S&P 500 stocks, and currencies (exchange rates) which show a sensitive response to the same macroeconomic news.
According to the report, the market value of cryptocurrencies has risen fast in recent years, reaching $2.5 trillion, with Bitcoin surpassing $1 trillion.
Notes: The chart plots the market capitalizations of Bitcoin and twenty-two other cryptocurrencies (Aave, BinanceCoin, Cardano, ChainLink, Cosmos, CyrptocomCoin, Dogecoin, EOS, Ethereum, Iota, Litecoin, Monero, NEM, Polkadot, Solana, Stellar, Tether, Tron, Uniswap, USDCoin, WrappedBitcoin, and XRP). Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying the total number of coins in circulation by their price.
By relying on high-frequency data in a brief enough timeframe around a macro announcement, the data release is the only information consistently reaching the market. As a result, the survey conducts the empirical finance equivalent of a natural experiment by examining the behavior of asset prices in that time window surrounding various announcements.
The report focuses on the 2000–2022 period for all assets taking an example of the reaction of a few U.S. asset prices around real-economy data news, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation report with a lower-than-expected nonfarm payrolls figure, statistics, and data on the direction of wage and employment trends, and monetary policy news, such as Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. Results show that the dollar instantly fell by roughly 1% against the euro, stock prices fell by about 0.5%, and gold prices rose by 2%.
Response of U.S. asset prices to macroeconomic and monetary policy news
Notes: Responses are normalized at zero at the time of the news release. The horizontal axis displays the hours before/after the release. EUR/USD refers to the euro/dollar exchange rate, defined as the amount of U.S. dollars needed to buy one euro.
Despite the researchers’ expectations that Bitcoin responds to monetary policy news and changes in current and future real interest rates, the report discovered that most macro and monetary news has a considerable impact on the EUR/USD exchange rate, gold, and the S&P 500. Bitcoin, however, was unresponsive to unexpected changes in the short-term rate, and its reaction to news about the future path of monetary policy was weak, showing its sign in a price rally.
While various studies have been conducted on the risk and return characteristics of cryptocurrencies, as well as the response of American assets to macroeconomic news, this report is unique in its high-frequency methodology, which gives a more exact assessment of the impact of the news, casting some doubts on the role of discount rates in pricing Bitcoin and proving the asset’s muted response to the macro and monetary policy news.
Source: LIBERTY STREET ECONOMICS
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