Cryptocurrency volatility forecasting: What can we learn from the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak?

This study aims to examine the issue of cryptocurrency volatility modelling and forecasting based on high-frequency data. More specifically, this study assesses whether crisis periods, particularly the coronavirus disease pandemic, influence the dynamic of cryptocurrency volatility. We investigate the four main cryptocurrency markets (Bitcoin, Ethereum Classic, Ethereum, and Ripple) from April 2018 to June 2020. The realized volatility measure is computed and decomposed to various components (continuous versus discontinuous, positive and negative semi-variances, and signed jumps). A variety of heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) models are developed including these components, thereby enabling assessment of different assumptions (including persistence and asymmetric dynamic) of modelling and volatility forecasting based on in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting strategies, respectively. Our results reveal three main findings. First, the extended HAR model that includes the positive and negative jumps appears to be the best model for predicting future volatility for both crisis and non-crisis periods. Second, during the crisis period, only the negative jump component is statistically significant. Third, in terms of volatility forecasting, the results show that the extended HAR model that includes positive and negative semi-variances outperform the other models.