Robust Statistical Pearson Correlation Diagnostics for Bitcoin Exchange Rate with Trading Volume: An Analysis of High Frequency Data in High Volatility Environment

Crptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security, transfer process and storage in ledger. This paper is to validate the correlation between exchange rate changes and trading volume changes. Data selected for this study is hourly data starting from 4 November 2017 until 7 November 2017. Methodology implemented in this study started with normality diagnostics and followed by correlation diagnostic. In this study, Pearson correlation calculation is implemented to evaluate the association between two variables namely exchange rate and trading volume. Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) is a measure of the strength of the association between the two variables. Result shows the coefficient of association is 0.123. Therefore, this study proved that the association between exchange rate changes and trading volume changes is very weak association. This value occurred because there is high volatility in hourly data and existence of outliers. The significant of this finding will help investors to recognize the relationship between trading volume and exchange rate. Therefore, it will help investors to make better decision in developing investment portfolio.