International media and information firm Thomson Reuters, the parent company of global financial news agency and financial market data provider Reuters, has added bitcoin pricing information to its Eikon trading software.

Offering a mix of news, markets data and analytics, Thomson Reuters Eikon was launched as a competitor to Bloomberg terminals, the 320,000-subscriber strong tool that helps empower Wall Street and professional traders.

Eikon will now display the price of bitcoin in USD as tracked by major Europe-based digital currency exchange Bitstamp.

Thomson Reuters cited strong customer demand as the impetus for the decision, which notably follows Bloomberg’s 30th April announcement that it would list bitcoin prices using data from US-based digital currency exchanges Coinbase and Kraken. Bloomberg has since added data from Bitstamp and itBit.

The official announcement promised to extend Eikon users the same level of functionality they are accustomed to from the service, stating:

“Traded rates and volumes as well as top of book quotes are all now available for you to act before the market moves.”

Thomson Reuters also cited bitcoin’s recovery following the insolvency of Japan-based digital currency exchange Mt. Gox and the addition of major merchants such as Expedia and DISH Network to its ecosystem as strong signs that the market is maturing.

Eikon’s bitcoin features

Thomson Reuters said that users of its Eikon product can take advantage of professional tools to track news and link to graphical analysis.

New bitcoin-specific offerings for Eikon include:

A time and sales viewer that displays volume-weighted average price (VWAP)

Daily open, high, low and close data

Intra-day and end-of-day charting for quotes, trades and volumes

Three-year traded rate and volume history

Top-of-book bid and ask size

Traded rates and volumes (in BTC).

Bitcoin traders that may considering adopting the platform were further encouraged by Thomson Reuters to try a free demo offer of Eikon.

Increasing market attention

In its full remarks, Thomson Reuters went on to discuss bitcoin’s relative success given its uncertain legal and regulatory status in most countries around the globe.

Despite these challenges, the company evoked broad and complementary language to describe bitcoin and the reasoning behind its decision to add the sometimes controversial asset to its trading platform, saying:

“Despite the skepticism expressed by many counter parties, the phenomenon of cryptocurrencies needs to be monitored as it brings on several implications on industry assets and practices (such as payment systems and the role of the banks), but also on regulatory ground (links with anti-money laundering legislations).”

The statements suggest that Thomson Reuters believes that many traders will want to monitor the progress of the bitcoin industry, even if they don’t yet directly invest.

Image via Thomson Reuters