CME Group to start publishing bitcoin market prices in real time
03 May 2016
CME Group of Chicago, which had looked for ways to strengthen its digital foothold since closing most of its trading pits last year, is working on plans to start publishing bitcoin market prices in real time.
It plans to launch the Bitcoin Real Time Index in the fourth quarter of this year, based on global demand to buy and sell bitcoin and reflect the market price in US dollars, according to CME's press release.
London-based digital assets trading platform, Crypto Facilities, would handle the calculations and CME would update the price about once every second, according to the release.
CME also planned to publish a daily settlement price, called the Bitcoin Reference Rate, that would be calculated in US dollars and released each trade day at 4 pm London time, or 10 am in Chicago.
"These products are designed to allow bitcoin traders, companies and other users to rely on a credible reference rate price source," said Sandra Ro, executive director and digitisation lead at CME Group, in the release.
Reference prices would be calculated on the basis of pricing data from several bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms, including Coinbase, Bitstamp and Kraken.