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Price news
Bitcoin has been unusually steady the past two weeks, consistently trading within the $230-240 price range.
Seven-day average price: $236.44 End of week market cap: $3.4 billion
(Prices quoted according to Coindesk Bitcoin Price Index)
In the bitcoin financial news over the last two weeks:
Nasdaq’s Bitcoin Embrace
In the news again, Nasdaq’s OMX is going to trial bitcoin’s blockchain as a platform for the issuance, transfer and management of private company securities. The idea is to disintermediate the clearance and settlement process, bringing investors better value and more transparency.
Bob Greifield, the Nasdaq group’s chief executive even stated to the Financial Times that he wants Nasdaq to become “a leader in the field [of using the blockchain in financial markets]”.
In addition to the Bitcoin ETN trading on Nasdaq Stockholm, Nasdaq’s licensing of trading technology to Noble Markets, and the Winkelvii’s ETF (coming soon), it looks like Nasdaq’s involvement with bitcoin and the blockchain is becoming really quite significant.
NYSE Launches Bitcoin Price Index
Following the New York Stock Exchange’s (NYSE) significant investment in bitcoin startup Coinbase, the NYSE Global Index Feed (GIF) has begun publishing the daily bitcoin US dollar price.
As reported by Coindesk, Thomas Farley, NYSE group president, said in a statement:
“Bitcoin values are quickly becoming a data point that our customers want to follow as they consider transacting, trading or investing with this emerging asset class.”
Currently the index is only based on price data from the Coinbase exchange, leaving any products based on the index susceptible to price manipulation through one, not-very-liquid bitcoin exchange. It will be important to expand the number of exchanges used for the index to improve its reliability.
EBA Likes The Look of Cryptocurrency
The Euro Banking Association (EBA) has released a report. The report is intelligently written and offers some interesting insight into the current landscape, how it relates to the traditional financial system and highlighting potential use-cases.
Unlike the European Central Bank’s report earlier this year – which was generally quite skeptical of bitcoin’s usefulness – the EBA describes bitcoin as a catalyst for positive change, with “transformative potential”.
Bitcoin Fund Added to Forex Platform IG
The UK’s leading forex provider, IG, is now offering bitcoin CFDs through a partner funding platform Invest Your Way (IYW).
IYW claim to have been receiving more demand for bitcoin than any other product, and now through their CFD, ‘experienced’ investors can now gain exposure to bitcoin.
Fun Stuff
I found this article very interesting about one man’s exploration of bitcoin HFT on Coinbase’s exchange: http://www.coindesk.com/high-frequency-trading-on-the-coinbase-exchange/
Follow me on Twitter @nwoodfine
Neil Woodfine is invested in bitcoin. The views expressed above are purely the author’s own and do not represent any organisation. None of the above should be considered as investment advice.
