Pricing factors of cryptocurrencies

In recent years, cryptocurrencies have become a significant element of the modern economy, attracting the attention of investors, regulators, and researchers. Despite substantial progress in understanding the factors influencing cryptocurrency pricing, many aspects remain insufficiently studied. This article provides an overview of traditional factors such as fundamental, macroeconomic, financial, behavioral, and infrastructural ones, and introduces two new groups of factors: socio-economic and market manipulators. Socioeconomic factors represent a wide range of influences determined by the state of society and the economy, significantly impacting cryptocurrency pricing. Market manipulators, on the other hand, encompass methods such as pump-and-dump schemes, insider trading, and manipulations using stablecoins, which lead to substantial price fluctuations in cryptocurrencies. The review of existing traditional factors in combination with new ones allows for a more comprehensive assessment of the dynamics of cryptocurrency pricing. The introduction of these new groups of factors underscores the need for further research to gain a fuller understanding of the pricing mechanisms in the cryptocurrency market and to develop risk management strategies. This work provides a review of existing studies and highlights gaps that require researchers’ attention.