Abstract/Summary

This study examines intraday time-series momentum in Bitcoin. Unlike stock markets, Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day and therefore has not got a clear opening and closing period. Therefore, we use trading volume as a proxy for the market trading time and show that the first half-hour positively predicts the last half-hour return. We find that the first trading sessions with the highest volume or volatility are associated with the greatest predictability for intraday time-series momentum. We also show that intraday momentum-based trading yields substantial economic gains in terms of market timing and asset allocation, especially in periods of a market downturn in Bitcoin. Consistent with foreign exchange markets in Elaut et al. (2018), we also show that the intraday momentum is driven by liquidity provision not late-informed trading.