engleski

FOMO and FUD in the Cryptocurrency Markets

H. P. Lovecraft famously stated: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”. If there ever was an unlikely yet perfect instantiation of this claim, the cryptocurrency markets must surely be it. Two acronyms dominate the space: FOMO standing for “Fear of missing out” and FUD standing for “Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt”. What attracts new people who are not professional traders to the crypto markets is their potential for extreme profits. However, this is only possible due to the highly speculative nature of the digital assets traded and the unregulated and highly volatile nature of markets as a whole. Confronted with such extreme levels of uncertainty, inexperienced traders are usually caught in the vicious cycle of FOMO-FUD trading: buying an asset when it’s price is already on the rise due to the “fear of missing out” on potential astronomical profits, only to panic-sell shortly after when it’s price sees just as sharp a decline, often due to various “fear, uncertainty, doubt” narratives spread either by nefarious actors or other inexperienced traders themselves. This talk will focus on two aspects of the FOMO- FUD cryptocurrency trading cycle. First, it will highlight fear as the primary emotion driving both components of the cycle ; and second, it will foreground and analyze the paramount role of narratives (spread primarily through social media such as Reddit, YouTube, Discord, Telegram...) in inducing both of these emotional responses in market participants.

cryptocurrency, FOMO (fear of missing out), FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), narrative economics

nije evidentirano