Virtual currencies in the COVID-19 process: A review on Bitcoin

This study was written during the Covid-19 global pandemic, which deeply affected the whole world. The main source of the study was the global pandemic. Because this epidemic disease has changed the whole social and economic order of the world. In order to reduce the spread of the disease and reduce deaths, countries have taken certain measures and the first sanctions have been to close the entrances and exits and to initiate curfews. The system of working from home was started and education life continued online. Shopping has started to be done online. In short, the Covid-19 global pandemic has placed our lives on a more technological structure. In this process, uncertainty dominated the economy. The fact that the VIX (Volatility Index) fear index, which measures the appetite of investors, is above 30 in this period, shows the importance of fear and uncertainty in the market. People hesitated to spend because they did not trust the markets. While some people prefer to invest their money in resources that they see as a safe haven, this habit of others has also changed. Bitcoin, which emerged during a crisis, was overvalued during another crisis. The segment, whose habits have changed, has started to invest in crypto money, which is decentralized, intermediary and costless. Bitcoin, whose value has increased excessively during this period, has been on the world agenda with the Covid-19 pandemic. Big companies, very wealthy well-known people have started to invest in Bitcoin. Thanks to social media, which is one of the biggest indicators of globalization, many people met Bitcoin in this period. Bitcoin is a big revolution, but the giant technology behind Bitcoin is Blockchain technology. The security and functioning of Bitcoin is maintained by Blockchain technology. In order to understand how Bitcoin works, it is necessary to master the Blockchain technology first. The aim of this study; It is to reveal the relationship between the Covid-19 pandemic and the VIX index, which measures the environment of fear and uncertainty created by this pandemic, and Bitcoin. The daily rates of the dependent variable Bitcoin, the daily change rates of the independent variable VIX index, and the daily death rates of Covid-19 from January 1, 2020 to June 15, 2021 were analyzed. For this, the Least Squares Method has been applied. Within the framework of the least squares method, different analyzes of the variables in the model were made and the relationship between them was tried to be explained. Keywords: Covid-19, Bitcoin, VIX index, Blockchain technology, Cyrptocurrency