This paper analyses herding in cryptocurrency markets in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. We employ a combination of quantitative methods to hourly prices of the four most traded cryptocurrency markets - USD, EUR, JPY and KRW - for the period from 1st January 2019 to 13th March 2020. While there are several strong theoretical reasons to observe the “black swan” effect on cryptocurrency herding, our results suggest that COVID-19 does not amplify herding in cryptocurrency markets. In all markets studied, herding remains contingent on up or down markets days, but does not get stronger during the COVID-19. These results are important for cryptocurrency investors and regulators to enhance their understanding of cryptocurrency markets and the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

本文分析了COVID-19大流行期间加密货币市场中的羊群现象。我们采用定量方法的四个交易量最大的cryptocurrency市场的价格每小时组合-美元，欧元，日元和韩元-从2019年1月1日至3月13日到2020年期间虽然有多种强有力的理论原因，观察“黑天鹅效应对加密货币羊群的影响，我们的结果表明，COVID-19不会在加密货币市场上扩大羊群。在所研究的所有市场中，放牧仍取决于市场涨跌的日子，但在COVID-19期间并不会变强。这些结果对于加密货币投资者和监管机构增进对加密货币市场以及COVID-19大流行的财务影响的理解非常重要。