10 Best Sites To Help You Track Bitcoin Exchange Rates

Bitcoin may have become relatively more stable as of late, even after numerous security scares, but it’s still far from being completely stable. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, unlike fiat currencies like the US Dollar, isn’t backed by governments and aren’t influenced by monetary policy. This makes it a lot more like gold than any other currency, since its value rests entirely on how much people are willing to pay, and how much its users believe in it. This, as you can imagine, can lead to volatility and uncertainty.

Given this uncertainty and potential for volatility, it would be quite a smart move to keep an eye on the value of Bitcoin, especially if you’re trying to make a profit from an investment. Even if you’re not an investor, it’s still a good idea to be aware, just in case. Here’s a list of 10 sites that you can use to track the value of Bitcoin.

Recommended Reading: 10 Exchanges To Buy And Sell Bitcoins

1. Bitcoin Charts

Bitcoin Charts is probably the most comprehensive Bitcoin price tracker available. Bitcoin Charts tracks the price of Bitcoin in relation to a large number of currencies, including USD, EUR, GBP, JPY and even Ripple. Bitcoin Charts has a few different chart types and can even show moving averages and technical indicators such as accumulation/distribution and rate of change.

The time range for the charts can be as short as 1 day and as long as 8 years, with an All Data option. As you might expect, there isn’t enough data for the 4- and 8-year time ranges. Bitcoin Charts also has charts showing Bitcoin exchange volume distribution.

2. BitcoinWisdom

BitcoinWisdom tracks the price of Bitcoin on a number of major exchanges such as Bitstamp, BTC-e and Coinbase. BitcoinWisdom also tracks the price of Bitcoin in relation to other cryptocurrencies on exchanges such as Cryptsy and Bter. BitcoinWisdom has a few settings you can tweak, including chart styles and depth ranges.

The tracker updates in real time, and you can choose the time interval for the main graph, ranging from one minute to one week. Bitcoin Wisdom also has Bitcoin and Litecoin difficulty charts and mining calculators.

3. CoinDesk

CoinDesk’s Bitcoin price tracker has both their own Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), which averages the prices from three leading Bitcoin exchanges: Bitfinex, Bitstamp and BTC-e. The graph can display either the BPI, or price data from any of the three exchanges. Historical data for Mt. Gox is also included.

CoinDesk can display both Closing and Open, High, Low, Close (OHLC) price data. The time frame for the graph ranges from 1 hour to an All setting that goes back as far as possible. You can also set a custom time frame.

4. Bitcoinity

Bitcoinity tracks the price of Bitcoin across a number of different exchanges and currencies. Unlike most trackers, Bitcoinity has a preferences section where you can customize your experience. You can, amongst others, choose the default theme, the precision of the price, whether to show prices in BTC or mBTC and hide trades smaller than a certain amount.

Bitcoinity has an alternate light-colored theme if you don’t like the default color scheme. The time range for the price chart ranges from 10 minutes up to a historical 2 year view. The change graph ranges from 1 minute to 1 hour. It also lets you zoom in and out.

5. Coinbase

Coinbase isn’t a dedicated price tracker, but still has a Charts view that tracks Bitcoin’s price. Coinbase has charts that track Bitcoin price in USD as well as the number of Bitcoin transactions per day. Coinbase is one of the few trackers that also tracks transaction volume, which may be of interest to some.

Like most other trackers, you can select the time range of the graph, from 1 day up to an All option. You can also set a custom time range. Coinbase doesn’t explicitly state the source of their price data.

6. Winkdex

Winkdex pools data from seven different exchanges, including Bitfinex, Bitstamp and CampBX, to provide an average price for Bitcoin. Winkdex weighs exchange prices according to transaction volume on the exchanges, so that high-price but low-transaction outliers will not greatly affect the average price.

Winkdex has a remarkably clean interface and gives you a number of range options, from as short as one day up to a Max option that shows all available data. Winkdex is still in beta and might have some bugs that need to be ironed out.

7. Blockchain

Blockchain draws its data from Bitcoinity, but presents it in a slightly easier to use way. Unlike Bitcoinity, Blockchain only tracks three currencies: USD, EUR and GBP. Blockchain also shows the BTC-e chat room in a small window, so you can keep up to date with all the gossip and discussion going on there.

The time range for the price chart on Blockchain ranges from 10 minutes up to 6 months, while the change graph ranges from 1 minute to 1 hour. You can also zoom in and out of the change graph.

8. Bitcoin Ticker

Bitcoin Ticker tracks the value of Bitcoin in real time on six different exchanges. These exchanges include BitStamp, BTCChina, Bitfinex and Kraken. Bitcoin Tracker also has a news ticker that shows all the latest Bitcoin-related news, as well as a real-time readout of buy and sell orders on the respective exchanges.

The graph has a time range from 10 minutes to All Time. Bitcoin Ticker also has a Combined view mode that shows real-time price graphs for Bitfinex, Huobi, BitStamp and BTC-e on the same screen.

9. BigTerminal

BigTerminal tracks a large number of markets, including cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Litecoin. As far as Bitcoin is concerned, BigTerminal can track both average and exchange-specific prices, namely on BitStamp, BTC-e and Coinbase. You can compare charts and even change the currency BigTerminal displays in.

BigTerminal’s graph defaults to a quarterly view, but you can go as short as 15 minutes and as far back as a historical view. BigTerminal includes social sharing options as well as chart and drawing tools. You can even save the charts in a few different formats.

10. Bitwat.ch

Bitwat.ch does things a bit differently. Instead of tracking the value of Bitcoin, Bitwat.ch is a site that sends you alerts via e-mail when the price of Bitcoin rises above or drops below a certain price of your choosing. Bitwat.ch gets its data from CoinDesk‘s Bitcoin price tracker.

You can also register on Bitwat.ch if you want to keep track of all your alerts. Registering also lets you delete alerts, which can be useful if the price levels you set have been made out of date, or if you’re just tired of receiving alerts.

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Noora Health’s Training Program For Patients And Caregivers Improves Recovery And Reduces Readmission Rates

If you’ve ever had a major surgery or medical event, you know that the education around recovery leaves much to be desired. When I had a C-section with the birth of my daughter, the hospital gave me a piece of paper that listed some of the medical issues that could take place if my recovery wasn’t going well. But I really had no idea how to handle the recovery–in fact, I made several calls to my physician (and had an untimely ER visit) because of complications.

Noora Health wants to change this. The nonprofit graduating from Y Combinator is building hospital education platforms for patients and their family members to teach them the skills needed to recover from a major medical event (like a surgery) or manage chronic conditions like diabetes and palliative care. Using an iPad app, Noora Health works with hospitals to offer patients and their families combination of videos, quizzes and interactive content to teach skills to aid in their recovery at home.

The problem Noora is tackling is real. In the United States, patient 30 day readmission rates for hospitals are at 20-30%. Medicare alone spends roughly $17 billion per year on return visits that are preventable with proper education and training.

Noora Health will actually supply iPads to be put on patient’s bedside tables post surgery. Patents then self identify themselves by entering basic information related to their condition and an interactive education program is presented to them based on their condition and circumstances.

Part of the program involves giving family members 24-hour access while the patient is in the hospital so they can actually practice some of the skills (i.e. changing a dressing of a bandage) before they go home. Doctors and nurses get reports on the patient’s progress and can see which skills patients are succeeding and struggling with and follow-up with the patient accordingly. Each program has a different focus, and for now extend to heart failure patients (vascular, surgery), new mothers, Alzheimer’s patients, diabetes and pneumonia.

Eventually the organization’s technology will become more customizable to each patient’s specific condition, we’re told. So the program will start taking into account certain medical history data points like whether the patient is a smoker.

The non-profit was founded by Edith Elliott and Katy Ashe, who met while developing a program in India at Stanford’s d.school. Once they thought of the idea for Noora Health, Ashe and Elliot thought India would be a good start to bring better health education to a developing country. Specifically, the healthcare infrastructure in India can’t keep up with the growing demand for health services, and there is a need for more doctors and healthcare professionals in general.

Through a partnership with a chain of low-cost hospitals in India, Narayana Health, Noora provided their training program to over 6,000 patients and family members. Results were impressive–there was a 23% reduction in readmission for open heart surgery patients. As a side note, Noora’s name derives meaning from the Arabic word for light and was the name of one of the first family members Elliot and Ashe interacted with in the early stages of their nonprofit’s development.

With this program in place, Noora Health is now extending this to US Hospitals. Currently, coordinating content and programs with 8 institutions including Stanford Hospital, and with Santa Clara Valley Hospital (a program for new mothers). Early data shows that the program is reducing readmission rates, increase knowledge retention, and boost patient satisfaction rates.

What Noora Health is offering is compelling for hospitals considering the recent changes in reimbursement with The Affordable Care Act. Patient satisfaction and readmission rates are now calculated into the costs for Medicare, Medicaid and MediCal patients. So hospitals are looking to increase satisfaction and reduce readmission rates.

As Elliot and Ashe explain to me, Noora Health’s simple goal is to empower patients with the information they need to truly take care of themselves through design and technology. “Patients and caregivers don’t ever go through a training course like CPR yet are being put in these very scary situations post surgery,” explains Elliot. Ashe adds that especially in small villages in developing countries, there is no education. But even in the Western world, she says, patients are confronted with critical decisions and changes following surgery that impact their health for the remainder of their lives. Education and skill training is the best way to help empower patients and families.

As someone who did go through a major surgery recently, I would most certainly have benefitted from a better education around recovery.

Care In Action from Noora Health on Vimeo.