Bloomberg adds bitcoin price ticker

Bitcoin’s steady march towards Wall Street passed another milestone today, as Bloomberg added a price ticker the virtual currency to its Bloomberg Professional service. The subscription-based service reaches more than 320,000 investors and financial professionals across the globe, adding an additional level of legitimacy for a currency widely considered to be “hacker money” only a year ago.

The ticker includes current price information from Coinbase and Kraken, and tracks bitcoin-related news and social media posts from over 100,000 sources. Bitcoin and related virtual currencies are listed under “VCCY” on the site.

In the blog post announcing the new feature, Bloomberg Professional staff explained the reasons for adding bitcoin to the service.

Why are we providing information on our platform about such a controversial market? Three main reasons:

• Transparency – Bloomberg was founded to provide transparency to opaque financial markets and we believe all markets, even digital currencies, greatly benefit from increased transparency.

• Client demand – Serving the needs and objectives of clients has always been a guiding principle of Bloomberg. Clients are increasingly interested in bitcoin and other digital currencies and are looking for tools to better monitor developments in these markets.

• Innovation – While bitcoin and other virtual currency markets are still nascent, they represent an interesting intersection of finance and technology. Given that Bloomberg sits squarely at that intersection, providing pricing for this underdeveloped market is a natural fit for us.

The addition of bitcoin-specific coverage on Bloomberg is not unexpected. Rumors of an in-house, employees-only price ticker at Bloomberg have been floating around since last summer. Bloomberg’s various media arms have regularly featured and discussed bitcoin since early 2013.