Ethical and intergenerational implications of crude oil price volatility and cryptocurrency markets in energy finance transitions

An analysis of the ethical and intergenerational dimensions of contemporary energy-finance transitions by systematically mapping the scholarly intersection between crude oil price volatility and cryptocurrency markets is conducted in this study. Drawing on a comprehensive bibliometric and topic-modelling analysis of 4,147 Scopus-indexed publications published between 2014 and 2024, the research investigates how emerging digital financial systems interact with oil market instability and broader sustainability concerns. By integrating Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modelling with co-citation and keyword network analysis, the study reveals evolving research themes related to energy financialization, decentralized finance, environmental externalities, and regulatory uncertainty. Beyond its technical contributions, the findings highlight critical ethical questions surrounding climate responsibility, distributive justice, and intergenerational equity, particularly in relation to energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining and speculative responses to oil price shocks. The paper advances the concept of moral imagination by demonstrating how financial and technological innovation can either reinforce unsustainable trajectories or support ethically grounded sustainability transitions. The results offer policy-relevant insights for regulators, investors, and institutions seeking to balance economic resilience with long-term environmental responsibility and justice for future generations.