Holiday effect

Cryptocurrency markets have matured into a distinct asset class characterized by extreme volatility, deep liquidity pools, and worldwide retail participation. Traditional equity and commodity markets exhibit a well-documented pre-holiday effect, where returns on trading days immediately preceding public holidays tend to outperform other days. Given that Bitcoin is often described as the archetypal absolute risk asset, it is natural to hypothesize that any calendar-driven anomalies observed in equities should manifest—or even amplify—in crypto markets.

However, unlike equity markets, where institutional investors and marketing calendars drive collective behavior, crypto markets are more dispersed, retail-dominated, and influenced by nontraditional information flows. This article investigates whether the classic pre-holiday effect applies to Bitcoin and assesses the extent to which it can be amplified by an attention-grabbing momentum filter based on local price highs.