The Winklevoss Twins, Cameron and Tyler, are hoping to make a splash with their newly-launched Bitcoin Price Index, aptly named the WinkDex.
According to a Fortune exclusive, the twins — beginning today — will be opening up their Index’s API (application programming interface) to developers, which will allow said developers to build atop the Index with their own programs.
“We’ve spent a lot of time trying to build a really cool tool,” said Cameron Winklevoss to Fortune. “Obviously the index will be big for us because it will be used to price any future ETF. But we also wanted to build on this for the betterment of the Bitcoin community.”
The move will increase community interaction with the Index, which includes a blended price average from top exchanges. As described on the WinkDex website:
[blockquote style=”2″]Winklevoss Index[SM] (also known as WinkDex[SM]) provides a blended price for bitcoins. WinkDex is calculated by blending the trading prices in U.S. dollars for the top three (by volume) qualified Bitcoin Exchanges during the previous two hour period using a volume-weighted exponential moving average. This proprietary formula weights transactions proportionally by volume as well as exponentially by time to give greater weight both to higher volume transactions and more recent transactions.[/blockquote]
Utilized exchanges include Bitstamp, BTC-e, Bitfinex, and LocalBitcoins (which in itself isn’t an exchange).
The WinkDex looks to be the de facto price measure of bitcoin, but they’ve got some work to do. As of current, many users have taken to quoting Bitstamp rates as the price of bitcoin.
Bitcoin news website CoinDesk also maintains a price index, which is often quoted.
[textmarker color=”C24000″]Source[/textmarker] Fortune