Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has partnered with Blockchain tech company Blockstream to bring “disciplined” Bitcoin price information to major Wall Street investors, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports.
ICE, the parent firm of the The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), says it plans to pull data from 15 major exchanges and deliver it to big financial names, including hedge funds and professional trading firms, in a format designed to let them easily take work with up-to-date metrics.
The move is yet another example of Bitcoin steadily coming into focus for traditional investment players, in this case keen to leverage its potential as a tradeable asset.
That ICE settled on the Blockstream deal is in itself a further “sign that the once-fringe market for cryptocurrencies is being taken seriously by Wall Street,” the WSF bullishly suggests.
The tool would likely see its first release in March, providing traditional investors with something tantamount to a Wall Street-tailored version of already existing crypto market monitoring resources, such as the widely-used CoinMarketCap.
CoinMarketCap has come in for criticism in recent weeks after developers excluded major South Korean exchanges from the site’s price calculations on Jan. 8, due to what they described as “extreme divergence.”
The WSJ continues the narrative, suggesting the ICE product will have the benefit of removing industry reliance on resources that have a “homegrown feel.”
The news marks the second significant announcement for Blockstream this week -- on Jan. 16, the development business launched a Lightning Network-enabled payments store.