Understanding the growing importance of blockchain technology, major government organizations have started tracking the price movements of major cryptocurrencies.
The latest government organization to join the list is the US Fed’s St. Louis branch, which has added four series on the price data of Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), and Ethereum (ETH).
FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data), the in-house research division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has been assigned the task of tracking the price data.
FRED obtains the price data on a daily basis from Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world with more than 13 million customers. The cryptocurrency price data dates backs to 2014. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has always showed open mindedness towards cryptocurrencies.
In a seminar conducted on the topic of Bitcoin in 2014, St.Louis Fed vice president David Andolfatto famously said that traditional financial institutions may have to either ‘adapt or die”.