Testing for herding in the cryptocurrency market

The study investigates whether herding behavior is present in the rapidly emerging cryptocurrency market. By analyzing daily data from major cryptocurrencies during the period August 2015 to December 2018, we find evidence that investors in the cryptocurrency market act irrationally and imitate other's decisions with no reference to their own beliefs. Furthermore, our empirical results provide evidence that the up-events market dispersion follows market movements at a faster pace compared to the down events. Thus, cryptocurrencies show a behavior where they tend to move in tandem, which does not necessarily reflect their fundamentals.