Bloomberg Expands Terminal Coverage to Top 50 Cryptocurrencies

Key Insights:

• Every crypto asset in the top 50 has more than $1B market capitalization.
• Bloomberg began tracking Bitcoin prices in 2013.
• Institutional interest is still prevalent despite the bear market.

On June 9, Bloomberg announced the expansion of its industry-leading coverage of assets to include the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

Clients can now use the Terminal to monitor intraday pricing for an expanded selection of crypto assets, indices, and futures contracts in real-time. The Bloomberg Terminal is a subscription-based computer software system that professionals use to analyze real-time financial markets.

It began offering data on Bitcoin (BTC) prices back in 2013 when the asset was trading at around $100 before its massive surge to over $1,100 at the end of the year. In 2018 Bloomberg expanded the Terminal to cover the top ten crypto assets and now the top 50 due to increased institutional interest, according to the announcement.

Testament to Growth

Each of these digital assets now has a market capitalization of over a billion dollars, even in a bear market which is a testament to how much the crypto token industry has grown in recent years.

In late 2018, just a handful of cryptocurrencies had more than a billion dollars in market cap. At the time of writing, decentralized finance platform Aave held the number 50 spot with its native token of the same name (AAVE) with a market cap of $1.3 billion.

The Bloomberg vetting process includes assessments of institutional custody support, trading access, market capitalization, and consistency of turnover. Alex Wenham, product manager for cryptocurrencies at Bloomberg, said that their mission is to “help the global institutional investor community to seamlessly incorporate digital assets into their workflows” before adding:

“As this market develops, we will continue to evolve our data-driven offerings to help our clients define and develop their strategies in this space.”

The move comes at a time when larger financial institutions are entering the space. This week it was reported that investment firms Fidelity and Schwab will be working with hedge fund manager Citadel Securities to develop a cryptocurrency marketplace for institutional clients.

Crypto Winter Deepens

The move also comes at a time of crypto market contraction as the bears show no signs of loosening their grip on markets.

Another couple of percentage points have been lost from the total market capitalization, which has fallen to $1.28 trillion over the past 12 hours or so.

However, markets have been mainly consolidating over the past month since their giant slide in April and early May. The total market cap is currently 58.4%, down from its $3 trillion peak in November 2021.

Bitcoin has fallen 1.2% on the day, dipping below $30,000, while Ethereum (ETH) 1% sliding to $1,778 at the time of writing. Most altcoins are also in the red during the Friday morning Asian trading session.