Fundamental and speculative components of the cryptocurrency pricing dynamics

The driving forces behind cryptoassets’price dynamics are often perceived as being dominated by speculative factors and inherent bubble-bust episodes.Fundamental components are believed to have a weak,if any,role in the price-formation process.This study examines five cryptoassets with different backgrounds,namely Bitcoin,Ethereum,Litecoin,XRP,and Dogecoin between 2016 and 2022.It utilizes the cusp catastrophe model to connect the fundamental and speculative drivers with possible price bifurcation characteristics of market collapse events.The findings show that the price and return dynamics of all the studied assets,except for Dogecoin,emerge from complex interactions between fundamental and speculative components,includ-ing episodes of price bifurcations.Bitcoin shows the strongest fundamentals,with on-chain activity and economic factors driving the fundamental part of the dynam-ics.Investor attention and off-chain activity drive the speculative component for all studied assets.Among the fundamental drivers,the analyzed cryptoassets present their coin-specific factors,which can be tracked to their protocol specifics and are economi-cally sound.

Impact of the COVID‑19 outbreak on the US equity sectors:Evidence from quantile return spillovers

The aim of this study is to examine the extreme return spillovers among the US stock market sectors in the light of the COVID-19 outbreak.To this end,we extend the now-traditional Diebold-Yilmaz spillover index to the quantiles domain by building networks of generalized forecast error variance decomposition of a quantile vector autoregressive model specifically for extreme returns.Notably,we control for common movements by using the overall stock market index as a common factor for all sectors and uncover the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on the dynamics of the network.The results show that the network structure and spillovers differ considerably with respect to the market state.During stable times,the network shows a nice sectoral clustering structure which,however,changes dramatically for both adverse and beneficial market conditions constituting a highly connected network structure.The pandemic period itself shows an interesting restructuring of the network as the dominant clusters become more tightly connected while the rest of the network remains well separated.The sectoral topology thus has not collapsed into a unified market during the pandemic.

On New Missions of the Belt and Road Initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative is in line with international principles of peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit, and aims to promote the world economy. It shoulders three missions: to continue creating global development dividends, to global economic transformation, and to promote world peace and stability. It is a way for China to build a community of shared interests and a better future for humanity.

On the role of stablecoins in cryptoasset pricing dynamics

We examine the interactions between stablecoins,Bitcoin,and a basket of altcoins to uncover whether stablecoins represent the investors’demand for trading and investing into cryptoassets or rather play a role as boosting mechanisms during cryptomarkets price rallies.Using a set of instruments covering the standard cointegration framework as well as quantile-specific and non-linear causality tests,we argue that stablecoins mostly reflect an increasing demand for investing in cryptoassets rather than serve as a boosting mechanism for periods of extreme appreciation.We further discuss some specificities of 2017,even though the dynamic patterns remain very similar to the general behavior.Overall,we do not find support for claims about stablecoins being bubble boosters in the cryptoassets ecosystem.

Food Is Security: The Nexus of Health Security in Fragile and Failed States

Global food security is a major development challenge dictated by state stability, resilience to geopolitical and economic shocks and is linked to health security. Fragile and failed nation-states are at risk of extreme poverty and lead to war and conflict. Fragile states experience, corrupt financial regimes and are influenced by skewed global market systems and reduced equitable market access that decrease food and health security. This qualitative review describes the critical cross sections of food security, the influence of global market systems and state stability and institutions that form the nexus of global health security. We outline how the manipulation of free market systems and decreased state capacity not only decrease food and health security but also contribute to state fragility and failure. Improved public health policy mechanisms, decreased dependence on foreign financial structures and extractive mechanisms are crucial to improving food and health security at present, and to further increase state stability in the future.

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: The Culture of Indoor Burning

This patient case report describes a 40-year-old African woman presenting with a classic acute presentation of carbon monoxide poisoning from an unlikely source responding to conventional treatment. This case highlights the classic presenting features of carbon monoxide poisoning and the requirement to maintain a high index of suspicion and immediate use of rapid empirical treatment in the undifferentiated patient, sometimes before diagnostics and definitive diagnosis can be determined. The definitive diagnosis and cause of poisoning are also discussed to educate the emergency physician to new and foreign cultural habits and encourage best medical practices within multicultural societies.

Editorial to special issue“Hidden market linkages between Bitcoin,cryptocurrencies and financial markets:Evidence from high‑frequency data and higher‑order moments”in financial innovation

The cryptomarket has evolved into a complex system of different types of cryptoassets,each playing an important role within the system.With specific features,opportunities,and risks.Studying their apparent and hidden linkages and general connectedness not only inside the system but also the linkages to the outer markets,being it either the traditional financial markets or the macroeconomic and monetary indicators and variables,plays a crucial role in understanding the market,managing risks,and aiming for profitable opportunities.The cryptomarkets are far from being simply Bitcoin or even just the most popular and capitalised cryptocurrencies and tokens which might have been the case just a few years back.

Eco-legal and economic aspects of developing Malomorsky fishing area of Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is the largest freshwater reservoir of our planet and a unique natural site included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.Meanwhile,Baikal is not only Russia’s largest freshwater fishing reservoir.Large-scale commercial fishing started here at the beginning of the 19th century and,with small breaks caused by bans imposed on commercial fishing due to depletion of valuable commercial fish species stock,continued until October 2017,when once again restrictions in the fishing industry were imposed.One of the reasons for this was the growth of illegal,unreported and unregulated(IUU)fishing(hereinafter also referred to as“illegal fishing”)which led to depletion of the stock of omul.However,these restrictions neither eliminated extensive illegal fishing,nor solved the problem of rapid fish stock rebuilding in the unique lake.Using methods of mathematical analysis and modeling this article examines factors facilitating breach of law in the fishing industry and illegal fishing for Baikal omul.The article provides a brief characteristic of the Baikal oldest Malomorsky fishing area as well as an eco-economic assessment of the possibility to rebuild the fish stock within this water zone taking into account the increasing tourist flow in the Baikal region.

First Masquerading as Gallstones, Pulmonary Hypertension Mimics PE

Patients presenting to emergency and urgent care centers with calf pain after long and short-haul flights are a common presentation throughout Europe. Patients fitting an epidemiological risk profile for cholelithiasis and presenting with right upper quadrant abdominal pain can also be a common presentation fitting of a specific patient profile. However, pulmonary hypertension can present in a nuanced and possible missed chronic and acute presentation. The patient case we present profiles a mildly obese 54-year-old Caucasian woman and recent holiday maker with unilateral calf pain and shortness of breath after traveling on a long-haul flight with tertiary symptoms of indigestion and epigastric discomfort indicative of gastroenteritis. This case highlights the required diligence for emergency physicians to maintain a high index of suspicion and broad differential diagnosis in the undifferentiated patient with seemingly common or classic presentations. We find that a serendipitous definitive diagnosis is made by following a systematic and organized approach.

Stock Market's Response to Real Output Shocks in China: A VARwAL Estimation

This paper studies the connection between the stock market and real output in China and compares it with benchmark countries,employing a novel vector autoregression with asymmetric leads(VARwAL)model.It makes two contributions.First,it finds that the time profile of the Chinese stock market's response to real output shocks suggests no evidence of a distorted relationship due to manipulation of Chinese real output data or domination of the Chinese stock market by individual investors.Rather,the Chinese stock market is relatively more responsive to real output,in line with the larger share of manufacturing in the Chinese economy.Electricity output and industrial profits,two different,less-manipulable time series,yield similar results.Second,it presents the first use of VARwAL impulse responses to detect stock market bubbles:VARwAL captures the 2015 bubble in China successfully.Over the full sample period,China's stock market appears to have been less prone to bubbles than the US stock market.