Abstract
dc:description.abstractIn Chapter 1, I document that there is a high correlation between the returns of cryptocurrencies and those of utility tokens, which are claims to products and services yet to be developed that are issued through ICOs and traded on crypto-exchanges. I demonstrate the presence of a numeraire effect in the pricing of these tokens and present evidence that it is driven by a combination of group thinking and representativeness bias. Investors mistakenly overestimate the probability that a cryptocurrency-denominated token is issued by a blockchain firm, and thus believe the fundamental value of the token is correlated with that of Bitcoin. I show that a 1% increase in the return on Bitcoin during the month before a token first lists on a crypto exchange predicts a 5% higher ICO return for a cryptocurrency-denominated token than for a fiat-currency-denominated token.
Degree
thesis:*- Name thesis:degree_name
- Doctoral
- Department dc:contributor.department
- Sloan School of Management
- Grantor dc:publisher
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Year dc:date.issued
- 2020
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Lu, Fangzhou,Ph. D.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
-
- Jonathan Parker.
Subjects
dc:subject × 1Rights
dc:rights- Statement dc:rights
-
- MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.
- Licence dc:rights.uri
- Language dc:language.iso
- eng
Identifiers
dc:identifier.*- Handle dc:identifier.uri
- https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126979
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/126979