Update: following a request from Bloomberg, we have removed the internal screenshots
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Last week was momentuous for BitCoin after a Texas judge officially recognized [6]it as a currency. To wit: "It is clear that Bitcoin can be used as money. It can be used to purchase goods or services, and as Shavers stated, used to pay for individual living expenses. The only limitation of Bitcoin is that it is limited to those places that accept it as currency. However, it can also be exchanged for conventional currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, Euro, Yen, and Yuan. Therefore, Bitcoin is a currency or form of money" (read his full memorandum opinion here) [7].
Whether or not BitCoin actually wants to be regarded as an accepted currency, and thus subject to US government regulation, remains to be seen. However, one thing is certain: a currency is not a currency, until it gets its own Bloomberg ticker. Just recall the confusion that followed the appearance of XGD [8], or the GREEK DRACHMA (POST EURO), BBG currency ticker in June 2012 caused a panic tsunami across Europe when everyone started asking what does Bloomberg know that nobody else does.
Enter XBT Curncy <GO>
... but only if one is a Bloomberg "internal". A lookup by outside clients returns the following:
[9]
Glaring pun above notwithstanding, a very different result can be found when the XBT query is submitted by a BBG employee.
[Removed Screenshot 1]
[Removed Screenshot 2]
In other words, just like everything else in the New Normal world, where economies and markets are both half-alive and half-dead depending on how one looks at them (usually whether central bank XYZ is part of the wave-function collapse), and where financial Schrodingerism rules supreme, BitCoin is now also an official currency as well... if only when looked from the inside out. It is likley that only when everyone has access to the "XBT" data that only then will the beginning of the end for the world's electronic alternative currency commence.
[10]