Purpose This research aims to assess the dependence of conventional and emerging cryptocurrencies on the public perception of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Narendra Modi, as reflected in Reddit posts. We investigate the structural dependence of four cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and Tether, on relevant indicators extracted through in-depth Reddit sentiment analysis. Design/methodology/approach The relevant sentiment indicators of public opinion linked to respective world leaders are systematically extracted to ascertain their role in explaining the daily closing prices of the chosen crypto assets. Initially, the predictive nexus structure is comparatively mined using Extreme Gradient Boosting, CatBoost, and Light Gradient Boosting Machine to unveil the impact of the sentiment indicators. Subsequently, robust forecasting frameworks have been developed, combining the indicators of the chosen political leaders with technical indicators and macroeconomic variables. Google's TabNet, a transformer-based deep learning model, and Facebook Prophet, an advanced time series forecasting methodology, are used to enhance the accuracy of predictions. Findings The overall findings exemplify the prudent influence of public perceptions on global political leadership in the crypto market outlook. Investors and traders can effectively track relevant social media sentiment indicators in conjunction with other explanatory features to anticipate the speculative behavior of these assets. Originality/value The utility of Reddit Sentiment indicators in representing public opinion on prominent leaders in explaining the speculative aspects of crypto assets through a robust methodological lens underscores the novelty of the underlying work.
Ghosh et al. (2026) studied this question.