Reference Rates

CM Reference Rates

CM Reference Rates is a feed of USD price benchmarks for top crypto assets calculated hourly or in real-time. Our rates serve as a transparent and independent pricing source for portfolio valuation and accounting, backtesting, or settling financial products.

Overview

Valuing institutional portfolios or tracking real-time pricing should be done with independent, auditable sources. Historically, this has been difficult to accomplish in the crypto industry. The most widely used sources lack transparency in their pricing sources and methods.

CM Reference Rates represent a fixed pricing of one unit of an asset quoted in U.S. dollars for a wide selection of assets. Our rates are produced at two different frequencies:

CM Hourly Reference Rates
CM Hourly Reference Rates are produced hourly, with human review and expert judgement applied for the New York Close Fixing Time at 4:00 PM EST.

CM Real-Time Reference Rates (Beta)
CM Real-Time Reference Rates are produced every second.

CM Reference Rates are constructed using a robust methodology that adheres to international best practices, including the International Organization of Securities Commissions’s (IOSCO) Principles for Financial Benchmarks.

Coin Metrics whitelists exchanges using a robust market selection framework that evaluates inclusion of a market (exchange and trading pair) along a wide set of criteria. A robust calculation algorithm then aggregates trades over an hourly time window to fix a price that is resistant to market manipulation and broadly representative of the market.

Useful Links

Features

Features of CM Reference Rates

Comprehensive coverage

  • Rates for over 200 of the top crypto assets.
  • Rates are available hourly or in real-time (second-by-second) with full history.

Easy access

  • Available through responsive REST and/or Websocket API.
  • Flat file uploads also an option for hourly rates

Rigorous Construction

  • Adheres to international best practices, including the IOSCO Principles for Financial Benchmarks.
  • Features daily automated quality control with direct manual review of every New York (4 pm) close for hourly rates.

Methodology you can trust

  • Coin Metrics’ methodology is public and includes the list of whitelisted exchanges, selection criteria, updates on selection, and calculation methods all governed by an Oversight Committee

Use Cases

  • Calculate precise net asset values (NAV) for assets in portfolios for accounting and tax purposes using a transparent and independent pricing source
  • Settle indexes or structured financial products with trusted closing pricing
  • Get real-time market visibility for higher frequency trading
  • Backtest trading strategies using accurate pricing representative of true market conditions