Trust Dynamics and Market Behavior in Cryptocurrency: A Comparative Study of Centralized and Decentralized Exchanges

In the evolving landscape of digital finance, the transition from centralized to decentralized trust mechanisms, primarily driven by blockchain technology, plays a critical role in shaping the cryptocurrency ecosystem. This paradigm shift raises questions about the traditional reliance on centralized trust and introduces a novel, decentralized trust framework built upon distributed networks. Our research delves into the consequences of this shift, particularly focusing on how incidents influence trust within cryptocurrency markets, thereby affecting trade behaviors in centralized (CEXs) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs). We conduct a comprehensive analysis of various events, assessing their effects on market dynamics, including token valuation and trading volumes in both CEXs and DEXs. Our findings highlight the pivotal role of trust in directing user preferences and the fluidity of trust transfer between centralized and decentralized platforms. Despite certain anomalies, the results largely align with our initial hypotheses, revealing the intricate nature of user trust in cryptocurrency markets. This study contributes significantly to interdisciplinary research, bridging distributed systems, behavioral finance, and Decentralized Finance (DeFi). It offers valuable insights for the distributed computing community, particularly in understanding and applying distributed trust mechanisms in digital economies, paving the way for future research that could further explore the socio-economic dimensions and leverage blockchain data in this dynamic domain.