Patterns and Determinants of Global Cryptocurrency Flows

Christian Friedrich and Laura Zhao

No 21528, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: In this paper, we examine the patterns and determinants of cross-border cryptocurrency flows. While our analysis focuses primarily on Bitcoin flows, the cryptocurrency with the largest market capitalization, we show that our key results also extend to four major stablecoins. After documenting global patterns of cross-border Bitcoin flows and contrasting them with those of traditional capital flows, we employ a cross-country panel approach to identify the key drivers of cross-border crypto flows for up to 162 countries. Our results provide evidence for the presence of multiple coexisting motives. The most significant motives comprise strategies to adjust to unfavorable macro and financial developments, as well as the need to conduct international payment and remittance transfers. Moreover, by conducting a case study of cross-border Bitcoin flows after the COVID-19 shock, we find that these motives were particularly relevant at a time when economic conditions were weak and the need for remittances appeared high. Gaining a better understanding of the motives behind cross-border cryptocurrency transactions is crucial for informing the public debate on cryptocurrencies and their potential use cases.

Keywords: Bitcoin (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E4 F3 F32 F38 F51 G15 G23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP21528 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21528

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP21528

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().