Bitcoin Surges as CME Plans to Introduce Bitcoin Futures

“The BRR has proven to reliably and transparently reflect global bitcoin-dollar trading and has become the price reference of choice for financial institutions, trading firms and data providers worldwide,” Schlaefer said.

Related: A Bitcoin ETF Will Still Need to Jump Through Hurdles

CME Group and Crypto Facilities Ltd. also publish the CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index (BRTI) to provide price transparency to the spot bitcoin market. The BRTI combines global demand to buy and sell bitcoin into a consolidated order book and reflects the fair, instantaneous U.S. dollar price of bitcoin in a spot price. The BRTI is published in real time and is suitable for marking portfolios, executing intra-day bitcoin transactions and risk management.

Cryptocurrency market capitalization has grown in recent years to $172 billion, with bitcoin representing more than 54 percent of that total, or $94 billion. The bitcoin spot market has also grown to trade roughly $1.5 billion in notional value each day.

For more information on the cryptocurrency, visit our Bitcoin category.