Examining the return dynamics of Bitcoin and Ethereum around major international football tournaments

Type of the article: Research ArticleAbstractCryptocurrencies have become increasingly important alternative investment assets, yet their returns remain sensitive to market conditions and external developments. Major international football tournaments attract substantial global attention, but evidence on whether these periods coincide with systematic changes in cryptocurrency returns remains limited. This study examines the return dynamics of Bitcoin and Ethereum before, during, and after major international football tournaments using monthly data from May 2016 to December 2025. Tournament-specific OLS regressions with market controls, calendar and trend adjustments, Newey–West HAC inference, and Benjamini-Hochberg FDR correction were employed in this study. The results show substantial heterogeneity across tournaments, cryptocurrencies, and temporal phases. Although several tournament-window coefficients are nominally significant, broader FDR adjustment substantially narrows the supported findings. The strongest evidence is concentrated around the FIFA World Cup, with a negative association between the tournament period and Bitcoin returns, and a negative associations between the pre-tournament periods and Ethereum returns. International football tournament periods are not uniformly associated with cryptocurrency returns, and the observed patterns depend on the specific asset, tournament phase, and event context. These findings are consistent with a potential behavioral or investor-attention mechanism, although attention and sentiment are not directly measured.