Donghwa Shin

Education

• Princeton University 

    Ph.D. in Economics (June 2019)

    Ph.D. in Operations Research and Financial Engineering  (incomplete)

         (transferred to Economics after passing qualification exams)

• Seoul National University

    B.A. in Economics and B.S. in Industrial Engineering  (August 2012)

Working Papers

Reaching for Yield in Decentralized Financial Markets

  with Patrick Augustin (McGill University) and Roy Chen-Zhang (UNC Kenan-Flagler)

• Winner of Best Paper Award at Global AI Finance Research Conference (2022)

• Presentations: FinTech and Financial Institutions Research Conference (organized by University of Delaware and Philadelphia Fed, 2024), Warwick Business School (2023), Bonn/Mannheim Workshop on Digital Finance (2023), EUROFIDAI - ESSEC Paris December Finance Meeting (2023), Warwick Business School Gillmore Centre Conference on DeFi & Digital Currencies (2023), BI-SHoF Conference at BI Norwegian Business School (2023), NFA (2023), FIRS (2023), Yonsei University (2023), York University (2023), Second Annual DeFi Academic Research Conference (organized by Duke and UNC, 2023), CBER Symposium - Investment in DeFi (2023), 16th Financial Risks International Forum in Paris (2023), ESSEC (2023), Frankfurt School of Finance & Management (2023), University of Hawaii (December 2022), Global AI Finance Research Conference (organized by NUS and SKKU, December 2022), UNC Kenan-Flagler (November 2022), 5th UWA Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference (November 2022), Joint Digital-Economy Seminar by Monash Univ., HKBU, and National Taiwan Univ., and Renmin Univ. (October 2022), KAIST/Korea University Business School (October 2022), McGill University (October 2022), Bank of Canada (October 2022), CAASA Annual Conference (October 2022), Canadian Derivatives Institute Annual Conference (September 2022),  University Blockchain Research Initiative Conference (September 2022), 15th Annual Risk Management Conference at National University of Singapore (July 2022), International Risk Management Conference (IRMC, July 2022), 2022 Greater China Area Finance Conference, themed "Finance Research in the Era of Big Data" (June 2022), 2022 Boulder Summer Conference on Consumer Financial Decision Making (May 2022), UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School (April 2022), 2022 Active Management Research Symposium organized by UNC Institute of Private Capital (January 2022)

• Coverage:  Delve

Extrapolation and Complexity  

• Winner for Daishin Securities Best Paper Award at the 15th Conference on Asia-Pacific Financial Market (2020) 

• Presentations: Workshop on Structured Retail Products at University of Hagen (2021), MFA (2021), Seoul National University (2020), CAFM (2020), Canadian Derivatives Institute Annual Conference (2020), NFA (2020), University of Oregon (2020), Wellington Finance Summit (2019),  U.S. SEC (2019), FINRA (2019), Financial Innovation and Risk Management Conference in Memory of Peter Christoffersen (2019),  UNC Kenan-Flagler (2019), Boston University (2019), University of Florida (2019), SUNY-Buffalo (2019), CUHK (2019), George Mason (2019), KAIST (2019), Korea University (2018), Princeton University (2018), NYU Stern Finance Lunch Seminar (2018)

• Coverage: The Granite Tower (Korea University), StructuredRetailProducts (webpage)

Publication

Cryptocurrency Pump-and-Dump Schemes

  with Tao Li (University of Florida) and Baolian Wang (University of Florida)

• Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (accepted).

• Presentations: CBER Forum for Blockchain and Crypto Research (2020), Crypto Day at Georgetown University (2020), Korea University (2020), AEA (2020), Princeton University (2019), U.S. SEC (2019), LSE Paul Woolley Centre Conference (2019), GSU/RFS FinTech Conference (2019), Cornell University (2019), University Blockchain Research Initiative Conference at UC Berkeley (2019), CICF (2019), Chicago Financial Institutions Conference (2019), 1st Annual Symposium in Financial Economics (ABFER, CEPR, and CUHK) (2019), 2nd Toronto FinTech Conference (2019),  University of South Florida (2019),  CKGSB (2019), Fudan University (2019), Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (2019), Florida Blockchain Conference (2018) 

• Interview: WIRED, MorningBrew

• Coverage: QuantPedia, Phemex, Kenan Insight, Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog, decimalchain.com, Les Échos (French), CryptoCoinNews (CCN), The Crypto Updates, Bitcoin Insider, Coinigy Insights, UF Warrington NewsRoom, Kaiko, BitcoinNews.com, The Next Web

The Impact of Derivatives on Spot Markets: Evidence from the Introduction of Bitcoin Futures Contracts

  with Patrick Augustin (McGill University) and Alexey Rubtsov (Global Risk Institute)

• Management Science (2023), Special Issue on Blockchains and Crypto Economics, 69 (11): 6752–6776

• Presentations: University of Luxembourg (2022), Northern Illinois University Econ (2022), MFA (2022), 2021 Conference on Derivatives and Volatility at CBOE (2021), CFTC (2021), Hogeg Blockchain Research Institute Conference (2021), Canadian Derivatives Institute Annual Conference (2021), Virtual Derivatives Workshop (2021),  4th UWA Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference (2021), 14th Annual Risk Management Conference at National University of Singapore (2021), International Risk Management Conference (IRMC, 2021), University Blockchain Research Initiative Conference (2021), Goethe University (2021), Macquarie University (2021), McGill University (2021), University of Oklahoma (2021)

• Coverage:  Fortune,  Global Risk Institute

The Wisdom of Crowds in FinTech: Evidence from Initial Coin Offerings

 with Jongsub Lee (Seoul National University) and Tao Li (University of Florida)

• Review of Corporate Finance Studies (2022) 11 (1): 1–46, Editor's choice

• Winner of NH Investment & Securities Best Paper Award at 13th Conference on Asia-Pacific Financial Market (2018)

• Presentations: KAIST (2020), Seoul National University (2020), ASSA (2020), WFA (2019), FIRS (2019), Princeton University (2019), Korea University (2019), FMA Asia (2019), 18th FDIC/JFSR Conference (2018), Florida Blockchain Think Tank (2018), CAFM (2018), Fintech, Social Finance, and Financial Stability (2018)

• Coverage: RCFS Paper Spotlight, Investopedia, Duke Law School FinReg Blog

Default Probabilities and Interest Expenses of Privately Held Firms

with Jin Chuan Duan (National University of Singapore), Baeho Kim (Korea University), and Woojin Kim (Seoul National University)

• Journal of Banking and Finance (2018), Vol 94, 2018, 235 - 250

• Research prior to Ph.D. studies. The first draft was completed in March 2012

Discussions

• Holding the Bag: Depositor Reactions to a Crypto “Bank” Collapse by Ian Appel, Jillian Grennan, Joshua White, and Sean Wilkoff (Fixed Income and Financial Institutions Conference at University of South Carolina, November 2025)

• Market Power and the Bitcoin Protocol by Alfred Lehar and Christine Parlour (UT Dallas Fall Conference, October 2025)

• A Study Of The Reliability Of Crypto Data Provision by G. Schwenkler, A. Shah, and D. Yang (CBER Annual Conference, May 2024)

• Learning from DeFi: Would Automated Market Makers Improve Equity Trading? by Katya Malinova and Andreas Park (Conference on Financial Market Regulation, May 2024)

• Don’t Trust, Verify: The Economics of Scams in Initial Coin Offerings by Kenny Phua, Bo Sang, Chishen Wei, and Gloria Yang Yu (MFA, March 2024)

• The Rise of E-Wallets and Buy-Now-Pay-Later: Payment Competition, Credit Expansion, and Consumer Behavior by Wenlong Bian, Lin William Cong, and Yang Ji (Paris December Meeting, December 2023)

• Market Manipulation in NFT Markets by Sebeom Oh (Conference on Financial Economics and Accounting, November 2023)

• Inflation Expectation and Cryptocurrency Investment by Lin William Cong, Pulak Ghosh, Jiasun Li, and Qihong Ruan (IIMC-NYU Stern India Research Conference, October 2023)

• Decentralized Governance and Digital Asset Prices by Ian Appel and Jillian Grennan (GSU/RFS FinTech Conference, September 2023)

• Insufficient Sleep and Intra-Day Financial Decision-Making: Evidence from Online Lending by Paul Freed (NFA, September 2023)

• Leverage and Stablecoin Pegs by Gary Gorton, Elizabeth Klee, Chase Ross, Sharon Ross, and Alexandro Vardoulakis (EFA, August 2023) 

• Are Cryptos Different? Evidence from Retail Trading by Shimon Kogan, Igor Makarov, Marina Niessner, and Antoinette Schoar  (Adam Smith Workshop, April 2023)

• Mutual Fund Private Information with Machine Learning  by Sean Cao, Baozhong Yang, and Alan Zhang (MFA, March 2023)

• Does Fintech Lender Compete with Technological Advantages? Evidence from Mortgage Lending, by Siyi Shen, Sijie Wang, and Xiang Zheng (Fixed Income and Financial Institutions Conference at University of South Carolina, November 2022)

• Blockchain without Crypto? Linking On-Chain Data Growth to Firm Fundamentals and Stock Returns, by Ran Chang and Lin William Cong (Shanghai Financial Forefront Conference, May 2022)

• Peer Co-Movement in Crypto Markets, by  G. Schwenkler and H. Zheng (Hogeg Blockchain Research Institute Conference, December 2021) 

• Technology and Cryptocurrency Valuation, by Yukun Liu, Jinfei Sheng, and Wanyi Wang (UWA Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference, November 2021)

• Crypto Wash Trading, by Lin William Cong, Xi Li, Ke Tang, and Yang Yang (FMA, October 2021)

• Testing the Local Martingale Theory of Bubbles using Cryptocurrencies by Soon Hyeok Choi and Robert A. Jarrow (Asian Quantitative Finance Seminar, June 2021)

• Decentralized Exchanges by Alfred Lehar and Christine Parlour (6th Southern Denmark University  Finance Workshop, June 2021)

• There's an App for That: Goal-Setting and Saving in the FinTech Era by Antonio Gargano and Alberto Rossi (MFA, March 2021)

• The Hedging Footprint  by Peter MacKay,  Sara B. Moeller, and Scott Linn (Conference on Asia-Pacific Financial Market, December 2020)

• Machine Learning, Human Experts, and the Valuation of Real Assets  by Mathieu Aubry, Roman Kraussl, Gustavo Manso, and Christophe Spaenjers (GSU/RFS FinTech Conference, February 2020)

• Blockchain Structure and Cryptocurrency Prices by Peter Zimmerman (EuroFIT conference at University College London, December 2018)

Journal Referees

   Review of Economics Studies, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Review of Finance, Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Research Policy, Journal of Empirical Finance, International Review of Finance, Journal of Financial Markets, Journal of Corporate Finance,  Financial Management, Journal of Financial Stability, Journal of Futures Markets, Journal of Financial Markets, PLoS ONE, Finance Research Letters, Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Journal of Financial Technology, Financial Innovation, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

Professional Service

• Co-organizer:  Junior Finance Conference at UNC (2023), Finance seminar series at UNC (2019, 2020, 2021)

• Program Committee: CBER (Crypto and Blockchain Economics Research) Conference (2023, 2024),  Midwest Finance Association (2023),  European Finance Association (2021, 2022, 2024), 3rd Spring Finance Workshop (organized by the University of Luxembourg, 2024, 2025)

• Reviewer: Jackson Hole Finance Conference (2020, 2022, 2023, 2024),  Duke/UNC Corporate Finance Conference (2023), AsianFA (2024), Conference for the JFI Special Issue, "Frontier Risks, Financial Innovation, and Prudential Regulation of Banks" (2024)

• Session Chair: Conference on Decentralized Finance at UNC and Duke (2022), Wellington Finance Summit  (2019) 

Previous Work Experience

• ECMiner, Inc. (Seoul, South Korea) - Jan 2009 - December 2011 (3 years of industry experience)

- Machine Learning and C++ Programming

Teaching 

 - At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• BUSI 408: Introduction to  Corporate Finance (Fall 2019-2023)

• BUSI 608: Introduction to FinTech - Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrencies (Previously BUSI 490. Fall 2019-2023)