Modelling Universal Order Book Dynamics in Bitcoin Market

Abstract: Understanding the emergence of universal features such as the stylized facts in markets is a long-standing challenge that has drawn much attention from economists and physicists. Most existing models, such as stochastic volatility models, focus mainly on price changes, neglecting the complex trading dynamics. Recently, there are increasing studies on order books, thanks to the availability of large-scale trading datasets, aiming to understand the underlying mechanisms governing the market dynamics. In this paper, we collect order-book datasets of Bitcoin platforms across three countries over millions of users and billions of daily turnovers. We find a 1+1D field theory, govern by a set of KPZ-like stochastic equations, predicts precisely the order book dynamics observed in empirical data. Despite the microscopic difference of markets, we argue the proposed effective field theory captures the correct universality class of market dynamics. We also show that the model agrees with the existing stochastic volatility models at the long-wavelength limit.