CME Group, a leading derivatives marketplace, has officially launched its bitcoin price indexes, first announced in May.
CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) and CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index (BRTI) have been developed in collaboration with digital assets trading platform Crypto Facilities Ltd. Several bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms will provide pricing data, including Bitfinex, Bitstamp, GDAX, itBit, Kraken and OKCoin.com (HK).
“The BRR aggregates the trade flow of major bitcoin spot exchanges during a specific calculation window into a once-a-day reference rate of the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin. Calculation rules are geared toward a maximum of transparency and real time replicability in underlying spot markets”, the description reads. “The BRTI aggregates global demand to buy and sell bitcoin into a consolidated order book that reflects the fair, instantaneous U.S. dollar price of bitcoin. It is geared toward low latency and timeliness and is based entirely on forward looking input data.”
According to CoinDesk, CME Group beta tested the two indexes last month. An independent advisory committee will oversee the price resources, whose members include bitcoin advocate and author Andreas Antonopoulos and Imperial College London Professor William Knottenbelt.
Sandra Ro, CME Group executive director, said earlier that the products have been designed to allow bitcoin traders, companies and other users to rely on a credible reference rate price source.
"The availability of robust reference prices with independent oversight is key to the professionalization of bitcoin trading and further establishes digital assets as a new asset class," said Dr. Timo Schlaefer, Crypto Facilities, at the time.
