The Winklevoss twins’ Gemini platform is being added as a constituent exchange for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group)’s cryptocurrency reference rates.
As revealed in an official tweet from CME Group on Aug. 8, Gemini will be included in four major crypto pricing indices as of Aug. 30.
CME Group Bitcoin, Ether Indices
As reported, CME Group launched its first two crypto pricing products — the standardized reference rate “CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate” and the spot index “CME CF Bitcoin Real-Time Index” — back in November 2016.
Both were heralded as major stepping stones toward the professionalization of Bitcoin (BTC) trading and the acceptance of the asset by stalwart traditional trading giants.
In March 2018, the Group launched two analogous products for Ether (ETH): the “CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate” and “CME CF Ether Real Time Index” in partnership with United Kingdom-based crypto futures-focused exchange Crypto Facilities.
Ahead of the addition of Gemini, these pricing products drew on transactions and order book activity data from major industry trading platforms such as Bitstamp, Coinbase, itBit and Kraken (Coinbase is, however, not cited in relation to CME Group’s Ether products).
Crypto index fever
CME Group was notably preceded by the New York Stock Exchange’s NYSE Bitcoin Index, which went live in May 2015 — a product that NYSE operator Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) claimed was the first-ever exchange-calculated and disseminated Bitcoin index.
Since these early offerings, crypto pricing products — many targeting institutional clients — have become increasingly more sophisticated and widespread.
This June, the half a million traditional traders using the Reuters and Bloomberg financial terminals were provided with access to a new AI-powered index for the 100 strongest-performing cryptocurrencies and tokens.
London-based crypto data provider CryptoCompare launched an Exchange Benchmark product this year ranking over 100 global crypto spot exchanges worldwide, having previously announced a partnership with Nasdaq to release a new crypto pricing product, as well as a joint venture with BitMEX to build a crypto futures dataset.
At the end of April, Nasdaq introduced XRP Liquid Index (XRRLX) to its global data service. Nasdaq had previously begun listing Brave New Coin’s Bitcoin Liquid Index and Ethereum Liquid Index.
In March, CoinMarketCap announced the launch of two cryptocurrency benchmark indices on Nasdaq Global Index Data Service, Bloomberg Terminal, Thomson Reuters Eikon and Börse Stuttgart.
