The impact of transparent money flows: Effects of stablecoin transfers on the returns and trading volume of Bitcoin

•Stablecoins are fully transparent: every transfer is recorded on a public blockchain.•We analyze how large stablecoin transfers affect Bitcoin returns and trading volume.•We identify significant positive abnormal trading volume and abnormal returns.•Effect differ based on sender/receiver addresses: unknown, exchanges, treasuries.•Transparent money flows can increase market efficiency. Stablecoins are digital currencies that peg to non-volatile values, most commonly a fiat currency. Unlike fiat currency, stablecoins are fully transparent—every transfer is recorded on a public blockchain. In this regard, they can serve as a valuable case study of the disruptive effect which transparent money flows could have on financial markets. We analyze how 1,587 stablecoin transfers of $1 million or more between April 2019 and March 2020 affected Bitcoin returns and trading volume. We find highly significant positive abnormal trading volume and significant abnormal returns in the hours around stablecoin transfers. The sender and receiver of each transfer are categorized as (1) unknown, (2) cryptocurrency exchange or (3) stablecoin treasury. The effects on trading volume and returns differ across the nine resulting subsamples, suggesting that market participants presume different transfer motives and varying degrees of information asymmetry for each sender-receiver combination. The findings illustrate the feedback effects between cryptocurrency markets and stablecoin usage and suggest that transparent money flows can increase market efficiency.