Bubbles across Meme Stocks and Cryptocurrencies

This study examines the price explosiveness of stocks whose purchase Robinhood restricted during the GameStop episode. We find that those “meme stocks” comprise multiple periods of explosiveness, indicating that they are unlikely to be an epiphenomenon. We also document evidence of price co-explosivity among meme stocks themselves and cryptocurrencies and meme stocks. Given the historical low correlation between the stock market and cryptocurrencies, our results highlight the impact of social media and emerging trading applications on interactions among equity and cryptocurrency markets, and their potentially destabilizing effects on both