Coin Metrics is pleased to announce the version 2.4 release of our Hourly Reference Rates and version 0.5 release of our Real-Time Reference Rates. Updated methodology documents for both products can be found here.

Coin Metrics produces the CM Hourly Reference Rates and Real-Time Reference Rates, a collection of prices rates quoted in U.S. dollars, published once per hour and once per second, for a set of cryptocurrencies.

The release notes for this release include additions and terminations to our coverage universe, reconstitutions of our whitelisted markets, some recalculations of certain assets, and a change in the recalculation section of the methodology.

Additions

This release expands our coverage universe to include 28 additional assets and brings our total coverage universe to a total of 249 assets. The 28 additional assets are included below.

  • WazirX (wrx)
  • Band Protocol (band)
  • Kusama (ksm)
  • USDK (usdk)
  • Synthetix Network Token (snx)
  • Blockstack (stx)
  • Flexacoin (fxc)
  • KuCoin Shares (kcs)
  • Hive (hive)
  • Energi (nrg)
  • Celsius (cel)
  • Unibright (ubt)
  • SwissBorg (chsb)
  • Crypterium (crpt)
  • BHEX Token (bht)
  • CyberVein (cvt)
  • Streamr (data)
  • STASIS EURS (eurs)
  • Insolar (xns)
  • Gatechain Token (gt)
  • Digitex Futures (dgtx)
  • Kava (kava)
  • Thunder Token (tt)
  • Swipe (sxp)
  • MX Token (mx)
  • Ocean Protocol (ocean)
  • Elrond (erd)
  • Livepeer (lpt)

Terminations

The following two assets are terminated from the coverage universe.

  • Storm (storm) was terminated due to being delisted from major exchanges because of a token swap.
  • Etherfuel (fuel) was terminated due to being delisted from all major exchanges.
  • Gifto (gto) was removed due to persistent and large spreads between major markets leading to the inability to calculate a reliable reference rate.

Reconstitution of Whitelisted Markets

The whitelisted markets that serve as the input data source for the calculation of the reference rates for each asset was refreshed on 2020-07-01 as part of a regularly scheduled quarterly review.

During each quarterly review, our Market Selection Framework is applied and the highest scoring markets are selected for each asset. Of note, the whitelisted markets for Bitcoin and Ethereum are changed.

  • For Bitcoin, bitflyer-btc-usd-spot is replaced with binance.us-btc-usd-spot due to historically low volume in the bitflyer-btc-usd-spot market.
  • For Ethereum, binance.us-eth-usd-spot was added.

Recalculations Due to Extension of Backhistory

Due to an expansion of our exchange coverage universe, the backhistory of certain assets have been extended and the historical whitelisted markets were improved to include additional markets. The following 11 assets received minor changes.

  • Algorand (algo)
  • Beam (beam)
  • Chiliz (chz)
  • Nervos Network (ckb)
  • FTX Token (ftt)
  • Hedera Hashgraph (hbar)
  • HedgeTrade (hedg)
  • Molecular Future (mof)
  • Odyssey (ocn)
  • OKB (okb)
  • Tether Gold (xaut)

Recalculations Due to Routine Improvements in Historical Whitelisted Markets

Investigations of price anomalies resulted in minor modifications of historical whitelisted markets for a small number of assets. The following 8 assets received changes and historical values received minor changes.

  • BnkToTheFuture (bft) from 2019-03-22 to 2020-07-01
  • Celer Network (celr) from 2019-03-26 to 2020-07-01
  • Mithril (mith) from 2020-01-23 to 2020-07-01
  • Ontology Gas (ong_ontologygas) from 2020-01-23 to 2020-07-01
  • Orbs (orbs) from 2019-05-09 to 2020-07-01
  • POA (poa) from 2019-02-02 to 2020-07-01
  • Theta Fuel (tfuel) from 2019-05-31 to 2020-07-01
  • V.systems (vsys) from 2019-01-19 to 2020-07-01

Recalculations due to Upbit Price Anomalies

During the most recent quarterly review for the CM Reference Rates, an issue was discovered that affected the quality of our reference rates for a number of assets. On November 27, 2019, Upbit disclosed a hack in which 342,000 Ether was stolen. In response to this incident, Upbit shut down deposits and withdrawals for a period of approximately three months causing nearly all of their markets to trade with large spreads against other major markets.

While the majority of the assets in our coverage universe that use Upbit’s markets as a constituent market were robust to this incident, a handful of assets were negatively affected by this incident. Due to the systemic nature of this problem and the number of price anomalies it has caused, Upbit’s markets were removed from our whitelist for 71 assets in our coverage universe after 2019-05-23. A recalculation of reference rates from 2019-05-23 to 2017-01-01 was conducted.

Of the 71 affected assets, 24 received material changes, where a material change is defined as greater than 1 percent of observations receiving a change in excess of 1 percent. The most affected period is from November 2019 to March 2020. The remainder of the assets did not receive material changes.

The following 71 assets received changes:

  • Golem (gnt)
  • Status (snt)
  • Decentraland (mana)
  • iExec RLC (rlc)
  • aelf (elf)
  • IOST (iost)
  • Loopring (lrc)
  • WAX (waxp)
  • BnkToTheFuture (bft)
  • Aragon (ant)
  • Storj (storj)
  • Verge (xvg)
  • Maker (mkr)
  • Ripio Credit Network (rcn_ripiocreditnetwork)
  • Polymath (poly)
  • Nucleus Vision (ncash)
  • Cortex (ctxc)
  • DATA (dta)
  • MonaCoin (mona)
  • district0x (dnt)
  • MCO Token (mco)
  • Metal (mtl_metal)
  • Enigma (eng)
  • Power Ledger (powr)
  • Ark (ark)
  • Komodo (kmd)
  • BlockMason Credit Protocol (bcpt)
  • Aeron (arn)
  • Zcoin (xzc)
  • Lisk (lsk)
  • AdEx (adx)
  • Waves (waves)
  • OST (ost)
  • NavCoin (nav)
  • Civic (cvc)
  • Steem (steem)
  • Viacoin (via)
  • Syscoin (sys)
  • Ardor (ardr)
  • Groestlcoin (grs)
  • Loom Network (loom)
  • IoTeX (iotx)
  • Pundi X (npxs)
  • Mainframe (mft)
  • Dent (dent)
  • Gnosis (gno)
  • Bytom (btm)
  • Decred (dcr)
  • DigiByte (dgb)
  • Cred (lba)
  • TenX (pay)
  • Nxt (nxt)
  • SIRIN LABS Token (srn)
  • Ignis (ignis)
  • Crowd Machine (cmct)
  • PumaPay (pma)
  • IHT Real Estate Protocol (iht)
  • Factom (fct)
  • Vertcoin (vtc)
  • ReddCoin (rdd)
  • Numeraire (nmr)
  • Dragonchain (drgn)
  • GoChain (go)
  • Lambda (lamb)
  • Ankr (ankr)
  • Metadium (meta)
  • Quant (qnt)
  • SOLVE (solve)
  • Crypto.com Chain (cro)
  • Orbs (orbs)

Changes to the Methodology

The recalculation section of the methodology was amended to specify several conditions under which a recalculation is policy and amends the recalculation window to include all historical values.

About the CM Reference Rates

The CM Reference Rates are designed to serve as a transparent and independent pricing source that promote the functioning of efficient markets, reduce information asymmetries among market participants, facilitate trading in standardized contracts, and accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrencies as an asset class with the highest standards. The reference rates are calculated using a robust and resilient methodology that is resistant to manipulation and adheres to international best practices for financial benchmarks, including the International Organization of Securities Commissions’ (IOSCO) Principles for Financial Benchmarks. The Coin Metrics Oversight Committee and an independent governance structure protect the integrity of the reference rates and ensure the reference rates serve as sources of transparent and independent pricing.

Please reach out to Coin Metrics at info@coinmetrics.io for more information on the CM Reference Rates.