UPDATE (11th June 02:30 BST): This article has been updated with Yahoo’s comment.
Access to bitcoin price data in the world of mainstream finance has taken another big step in the last 24 hours.
Following Bloomberg’s recent addition of bitcoin to its trading terminals in late April, and its inclusion on computational knowledge engine WolframAlpha, Yahoo! Finance has followed suit and now displays the BTC/USD price along with its many other listed fiat currencies.
A Yahoo spokesperson told CoinDesk that move was driven by the site’s users, many of whom had requested the addition of the feature:
“We’ve added bitcoin to Yahoo Finance because it’s something our users are interested in – adoption of bitcoin is becoming more commonplace, and we feel it is relevant to our industry and to our users.”
Along with the latest price, Yahoo! also lists opening/closing prices and ranges, plus an index of bitcoin-related news items.
The addition of bitcoin to the site is significant as it will make up-to-date price data available to a potentially new and sizeable audience. According to data for May 2012, Yahoo! Finance was the top financial news and research website in the US with more than 37.5 million unique visitors per month.
Community reaction
Reaction from the community has been positive, with reddit commenters hailing the move as another step in bitcoin’s march to global acceptance.
“This is literally the best news I’ve had all day, and the day is still young!” said one commenter. “Another nice stamp of approval,” said another.
Other commenters have wondered what source Yahoo! Finance is using for its data, with popular exchange Bitstamp mentioned as a possibility.
Indeed the prices seem to match quite closely, both sitting slightly below the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, but this fact remains to be confirmed.
BTC/USD chart on the iPhone ‘Stocks’ appA further factor noted by redditors is that, since Apple relies on Yahoo! Finance data, it’s ‘Stocks’ apps for both iOS and OS X can also be set to display the bitcoin price, though historical data is not extensive and an error arises with requests older than one week.
The presence of bitcoin on one of the most mainstream finance pages on the web is surely a milestone for the currency. Perhaps only bitcoin’s inclusion on Google could be more impactful.
So far, however, that is something the search giant remains reluctant to do.
Image credit: Ken Wolter / Shutterstock.com