Ethereum. As we need to make sure that everyone
agrees on the order of transactions, miners can help
this happen by solving computationally difficult
puzzles in order to produce blocks, which can secure
the network from attacks. Basically, the first miner
solves the problem and after he finish the problem
and the second miner can do the double check for him
and both of them can get the cryptocurrencies in
return as a bonus. Miners use graphic cards to mine,
and different graphics cards have different computing
power. Because mining consumes a lot of electricity,
some people steal electricity from the government or
universities to mine it. They also need a lot of
graphics cards, so the miners have affected the
market by raising the price of graphics cards. The
Chinese government doesn't want the economy to
flow out of the country, which is why mining and
cryptocurrencies are banned in China.
(1Point3Arces, 2020) The purpose of this paper is to
examine the effect of COVID-19 on the
cryptocurrencies market and the individual stock
Ethereum.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Brief Review
COVID-19 outbreak in 2019, has rapidly spread all
over the world, affecting almost everyone on the
planet and causing thousands of deaths. The COVID-
19 epidemic not only has a huge impact on the overall
economy, but also has a huge impact on
cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
This review tries to answer the following
questions. Does the COVID-19 pandemic that
surrounds everyone also affects the price of Bitcoin
and Ethereum? What is the relationship between
COVID-19 pandemic Bitcoin and Ethereum? Can
investors increase the adoption of cryptocurrencies
such as Bitcoin and Ethereum? Some academic
studies have shown that the price of Bitcoin is
affected by political and economic uncertainty. In a
period of uncertainty around the world, many
investors hope to use Bitcoin and Ethereum to store
some of their assets, making it possible to use them
as financial assets.
2.2 How COVID-19 Pandemic Affects
Cryptocurrencies?
Studies of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on
cryptocurrencies have emerged rapidly. Demir’s
study indicates that at first Bitcoin value and number
of reported COVID-19 cases and deaths shows a
negative relationship, however, as the
pandemic lasts,
the relationship becomes positive (Demir, et al,
2020). This shows that cryptocurrencies start to
become a hedge as the deepening of the COVID-19
effect. The reason behind this may be the fact that as
the number of reported COVID-19 cases and deaths
rise, governments around the world take additional
restrictions and this may increase the demand for
cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and Ethereum can mitigate
some of the issues that the pandemic brought (Fang,
et al, 2019). Reminding that Bitcoin and Ethereum
can be used as a payment and money transfer
instrument between different countries, researchers
also found that demand for cryptocurrencies during
the pandemic increases (Hadar and Sarel,
Columbia.edu) As a result, cryptocurrencies become
more attractive compared to other alternatives such
as the stock and gold. Furthermore, investors fear that
COVID-19 will push central banks or governments
to interfere with the market. This emotion may cause
investors to switch their investments into the crypto
market which is decentralized. As cryptocurrencies
are not managed by a central entity, they can help
investors to avoid some of the political risk. Hence,
investors should consider taking cryptocurrencies as
part of their assets depending on the cycle of COVID-
19. For market researchers, they should continue to
focus on the fluctuations in these cryptocurrencies
because as the number of observations increases, it
will provide new insights for the behavior of
cryptocurrencies in the market.
2.3 Bitcoin and Ethereum Can Serve as
a Short Term Safe-haven Asset
Before the invention of cryptocurrency, many studies
analyzed the properties of safe-haven assets. For
example, Baur and Lucey (Baur, Lucey, 2010)
proposed that an asset is safe if it is not correlated
with stocks during a market crash. Thus, gold is
considered as a safe-haven during the past economic
crisis. The cryptocurrencies market increased
significantly since the inception. Bitcoin has
increased its value from nearly $0 to more than $7000
in April 2020. Can Bitcoin serve as a safe-haven for
assets? Before the COVID-19, the answer is positive,
although many people pointed the potential bubble
in. However, as the pandemic of COVID-19 lasts
longer, Bitcoin’s price moves closely with S&P500
which shows that it is not a good safe-haven for
stocks. Ethereum is also investigated. The result
shows that both Bitcoin and Ethereum are suitable for