Making sense of chaos? Algos scour social media for clues to crypto moves

By Andrea Leccese

July 3rd, 2021

LONDON (Reuters) – After months of relative calm in cryptocurrency markets, bitcoin exploded back into life in April with its sharpest price jump in over a year – but few people could convincingly explain why.

The 20% leap focused investors’ attention on one of the enduring mysteries of cryptocurrencies: what moves the price of an emerging asset in an opaque, largely unregulated market?

For some, the answer lies on social media. Hedge funds and asset managers seeking an edge are training computers to scrape social media sites for triggers that could move the price of digital currencies.

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Andrea Leccese

Andrea is President and Portfolio Manager at Bluesky Capital. Prior to founding Bluesky Capital, Andrea worked as a Quant at Sauma Capital, a quantitative hedge fund in New York, and as a management consultant at Ernst & Young. Andrea holds an M.S. in Financial Engineering from Columbia University, and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Rome "La Sapienza".

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This article is intended for academic and educational purposes and is not an investment recommendation. The information that we provide or that is derived from our website should not be a substitute for advice from an investment professional. The hypothetical models discussed in this paper do not reflect the investment performance of any actual product or strategy in existence during the periods tested and there is no guarantee that if such product or strategy existed it would have displayed similar performance characteristics. A decision to invest in any product or strategy should not be based on the information or conclusions contained herein. This is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation for an offer to buy interests in securities.

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