Cryptocurrencies have become one of the hottest topics in finance in
recent years. Despite their fascinating appeal to the general public,
the understanding of the price formation process of blockchain-based
cryptocurrencies is still limited. This thesis analyzes factors
influencing the price of the five cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Ethereum,
Dash, Litecoin, and Monero in the time between January 2014 and July
2017. The developed hypotheses are based on economic theory and related
fields to explain cryptocurrency prices. To test the hypotheses, a
Granger Causality study by estimating vector autoregressive models,
vector error correction models, and autoregressive distributed lag
models is conducted.