Free Bitcoin/Bitcoin Futures/GBTC Quotes, Charts, & Historical Data

Finding quotes and historical data for Bitcoin, Bitcoin futures, Bitcoin options can be an adventure.  Below I’ve assembled links to the online resources that I’ve been able to find.

In many cases, data is available from multiple sources.  I did not attempt to list all of them.

BTC Quotes

BTC Charts

 BTC Historical Prices

BTC Futures

  • CBOE/CFE  Symbol: XTB
    • Quotes
      • Spot: Gemini exchange
      • Cboe (including bid/ask)
        • Use “Enter Symbol” Field
        • Ticker construction:  XBT/ followed by month-year code (e.g, XBT/F8 = January 2018 expiration)
          • F=Jan, G=Feb, H=Mar, J=April, K=May, M=June, N=July, Q=Aug, U=Sept, V=Oct, X=Nov, Z=Dec
      • Cboe/CFE  (all months)
    • Historical Data  CBOE
    • Term Structure  Chart:  VIX Central/bitcoin
    • Reference exchange:  Gemini
    • Contract Size:  1 Bitcoin, cash settled  (Contract Specifications)
    • Initial customer margin 44%
      • Brokers may require much more margin ( e.g., Interactive Brokers is requiring $40K per contract–around 130%–on short contracts)
    • Trading Hours (USA Central Time)
      Type of Trading HoursMondayTuesday – Friday
      Extended5:00 p.m. (Sunday) to 8:30 a.m.3:30 p.m. (previous day) to 8:30 a.m.
      Regular8:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.8:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.
    • Future settlement quote (once per day)
    • Option availability:  Earliest probably around March 2018

 

  • CME  Symbol: BTC
    • Quotes
    • Reference exchanges:  Bitstamp, GDAX, itBit, Kraken (combined into a composite quote via BRTI & BRR)
    • Contract Size:  5 Bitcoins, cash settled  (Contract Specifications)
    • Initial customer margin 35%
      • Brokers may ask for much more than this, especial for short contracts
    • Trading Hours:  Scheduled to start trading 18-Dec-2017
      CME Globex:Sunday – Friday 6:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (5:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. CT) with a 60-minute break each day beginning at 5:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. CT)
      CME ClearPort:Sunday – Friday 6:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (5:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. CT) with a 60-minute break each day beginning at 5:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. CT
    • Future settlement quote: BRR (once per day)  methodology) )   Historical Data 

BTC Mutual Funds

  • GBTC  Bitcoin Investment Trust  (A closed-end mutual fund)  Available for trading in regular brokerage accounts and IRAs
    • Shares outstanding & Bitcoin holdings GBTC  (as of 27-Dec-2017  1868700 shares,  171,796 Bitcoins)
    • Quotes Bloomberg  Yahoo 
    • Historical Data  Yahoo
    • Tracking Error with BTC
      • As of 27-Dec-2017  GBTC had premium over BTC of +57%   (GBTC price / NAV as reported by Bloomberg)

BTC Options & Swaps

  • LedgerX offers Bitcoin settled options
    • Their options are “physically” settled with Bitcoin
    •  To participate if appears you must be an institution or a high net worth ($10 million+) individual
    • See this page for a currently listed options and swaps

 


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9 thoughts on “Free Bitcoin/Bitcoin Futures/GBTC Quotes, Charts, & Historical Data”

  1. Hi Vance – Thanks for all the information. Any thoughts on when options on these futures (or on bitcoins themselves) would be available?

    • Hi rttrader, I think the CME / Cboe will be in a hurry to list options on their futures, Since the futures volumes look reasonable I’d expect options on futures to list in the March / June time frame. There is one company LedgerX that is offering options on “physical” bitcoins. It only offers services to institutions and high net worth individuals. I’ve added links to their stuff on the post.

  2. Hi Vance, I wonder what is the contango ranking for all trading products. VIX should be number one, natural gas is #2, oil is #3, but then I don’t know what could be the other few in the list. I also don’t really know why natural gas would have high contango. Thanks for sharing.

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