S. No.

Authors (Year)

Major findings/upside outlined

Downside outlined

1.

Nakamoto (2008)

Introduced Bitcoins. Designated it as alternative or virtual currency to replace the traditional currency market

2

Bell (2013),

Androulaki et al. (2013),

Brito et al. (2013),

O’Dwyer et al. (2014)

1) Classified it close to gold

2) Highly secured due to its SHA algorithm

3) Cryptocurrencies can be an effective portfolio diversifier

Potential regulatory impact due to lack of traditional monetary regime

3

Bradbury (2013)

Crosby et al. (2016)

Provided several financial and non-financial uses of Bitcoin

1) Cryptographic keys may be easy enough to crack due to quantum computing

2) 51% attack can jeopardize cryptocurrency market

4

Gervais et al. (2014),

Antonopoulos (2014),

Selgin (2015),

1) A synthetic money with potential to supply the foundation for monetary regimes

2) Does not need an oversight by monetary authorities

3) Can yield high degree of macroeconomic stability

1) Undesirable for governments to commit to an immutable cryptocurrency’s regime

2) Possibility of monetary stabilization by a synthetic commodity standard may be hypothetical

5

Böhme et al. (2015)

1) Defined it as a financial asset

2) Provides privacy and anonymity

Faces several risks such as market risk, the shallow market problem, counterparty risk, transaction risk, operational risk, privacy-related risk, and legal and regulatory risks

6

Brandvold et al. (2015)

Information share is dynamic and evolves significantly over time.

Due to its unregulated regime, it may face crime such as money laundering

7

Cheah et al. (2015),

Cheung et al. (2015),

Folkinshteyn et al. (2015)

Exhibits speculative bubbles

Fundamental price of Bitcoin is zero.

8

Dwyer (2015)

1) Prevent double spending by open source software

2) Its lowest volatilities are lesser than the highest volatilities for gold or dollars

1) Its average volatility is higher than gold or dollars

9

Yermack (2015)

1) Provides a mechanism of alternative currency

2) Its volatility is higher than widely used currencies such as dollar or pound

1) Fails to provide a medium of exchange, a store of value and a unit of account

2) Functions like a speculative investment than a currency

10

Dyhrberg (2016),

Shadab et al. (2014),

Pieters et al. (2017)

1) Can be used to manage the risk by risk averse investors

2) Placed between dollar and gold

Volatility is higher than gold and other stable commodities

11

Tschorsch et al. (2016)

Cryptocurrency markets is a new investment asset class as they are interconnected with each other and have similar patterns of connectedness with other asset classes

Speculative investment due to higher volatility

12

Bouri et al. (2017a),

Bouri et al. (2017b)

1) Serve as a strong bet for Asian stocks against weekly extreme down movements

2) Suggested to use for diversification purposes only

Poor hedge for economic uncertainty

13

Baur (2018)

1) Displays varied return

2) Speculative trading does not contribute to unprecedented rise and subsequent crash of Bitcoin

Its volatility is attributable to speculative trading.

14

Catania et al. (2017)

Large computation memory and leverage effect has a substantial contribution in the volatility dynamic.

15

Ciaian et al. (2018),

Sovbetov (2018)

1) BitCoin and altcoin markets are interdependent

2) In long-run, macro-financial indicators drive altcoin price formation

The virtual currency supply is exogenous and therefore plays only a limited role in the price formation.