Cboe and CoinRoutes: The Path to Creating Crypto Indices

February 25, 2021

In December, Cboe® signed an exclusive licensing agreement with CoinRoutes, a trading software firm that provides a suite of algorithmic trading tools for digital assets, FX and derivatives. The agreement enables Cboe to disseminate CoinRoutes’ market data and create potential derived data and analytics products using its RealPrice data. Highlighting Cboe’s commitment to defining markets, the agreement allows Cboe to help customers further understand cryptocurrencies and encourage their participation in this growing market.

CoinRoutes’ innovative RealPrice data feed is a consolidated Best-Bid-Offer (BBO) from 40 cryptocurrency exchanges that incorporates the actual cost to trade specific quantities of a digital asset in real-time. The new agreement grants Cboe exclusive rights to use CoinRoutes RealPrice data to create digital asset indices and to offer custom index creation and calculations to Cboe clients. RealPrice data provides a benchmark for trading decisions, leaving it far less prone to manipulation.

While cryptocurrencies are a new frontier for Cboe Global Indices, creating indices to help users better understand asset classes has long been the foundation of Cboe’s index ecosystem. Cboe indices help grow interest and understanding of certain products and strategies, paving the way for the creation of new products and tools.

Cboe expects to offer RealPrice data on its CSMI Cryptocurrency (CCCY) channel by the end of the first quarter and down the road, plans to distribute the digital asset index data across that same channel , enabling even more users to access the data. The Cboe Data and Access Solutions team may also use real-time data dissemination of RealPrice data in portfolio construction tools, pre-trade and cost estimation tools, risk measurement analytics for lenders and historical data for back-testing.

Together, these initiatives are intended to help Cboe’s clients better understand cryptocurrencies and encourage institutional participation in a nascent market, helping to bring transparency to the asset class and its market models.

In the News

Cboe Enters the Crypto Space

As Cboe steps into the crypto market, Catherine Clay, Executive Vice President, Head of Data and Access Solutions at Cboe Global Markets, joined The Block’s Frank Chaparro about the potential path to a bitcoin ETF. Through a recent partnership with trading software firm CoinRoutes, Clay is hoping to provide Cboe clients with cryptocurrency market data.

Key takeaways include:

  • The crypto market has grown tremendously and Cboe has collaborated with CoinRoutes to explore the crypto market space further. 
  • Cboe and Clay’s team are developing potential next steps while awaiting SEC approval for a bitcoin ETF.
  • Clay expresses the importance of data and analytics in the crypto market and highlights how CoinRoutes is helpful in providing real price data.

Listen to the full podcast on The Block


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