Cryptocurrency,Security, and Financial Intermediation

In recent years, the use of cryptocurrencies has increased. As these currencies continue to play a larger role, they eventually will be an important component of banking system activity. Moreover, in addition to the standard role of financial intermediaries to facilitate lending, intermediaries can be valuable firms that help provide safekeeping of tokens. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate these important functions in a microfounded model of monetary exchange. Furthermore, we also consider the possibility that central banks issue their own digital currencies that may affect the level of intermediation in the private banking system.     

Option Momentum

This paper investigates the performance of option investments across different stocks by computing monthly returns on at-the-money straddles on individual equities. We find that options with high historical returns continue to significantly outperform options with low historical returns over horizons ranging from 6 to 36 months. This phenomenon is robust to including out-of-the-money options or delta-hedging the returns. Unlike stock momentum, option return continuation is not followed by long-run reversal. Significant returns remain after factor risk adjustment and after controlling for implied volatility and other characteristics. Across stocks, trading costs are unrelated to the magnitude of momentum profits.