The Volatility of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Ethereum

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to select the best GARCH-type model for modelling the volatility of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Ethereum. GARCH (1,1), IGARCH(1,1), EGARCH(1,1), TGARCH(1,1) and CGARCH(1,1) are used on the cryptocurrencies closing day return. We select the model with the highest Maximum Likelihood and run an OLS regression on the conditional volatility to measure the day-of-the-week effect. The findings show that EGARCH(1,1) model best suits Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Ethereum data and that the GARCH(1,1) model suits best Bitcoin data. The results show a significant presence of day-of-the-week effects on the conditional volatility of some days for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum. Wednesday has a significant negative effect on Bitcoin conditional volatility. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are found to be significant and positive on Bitcoin Cash conditional volatility. Finally, Saturday is found to be significant and positive on Ethereum conditional volatility.