S&P Dow Jones Indices Launches New Crypto-related Indexes

Despite the fact that crypto prices got cut in half some two months ago now, crypto adoption doesn’t seem to be stopping. There is definitely a difference to be felt from the situation in 2018 when every media outlet out there proclaimed the death of the industry and the bursting of a bubble.

These days, institutional investors are continuing to buy, and new crypto-related products keep getting launched. The most recent example of this happened only yesterday, July 14th, when S&P Dow Jones Indices expanded its crypto involvement by rolling out new indexes that will measure the performance of the broader cryptocurrency market.

The details of S&P Dow Jones Indices’ new Index

According to what is known, S&P Dow Jones Indices just launched a so-called S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Market Digital Index (BDM). This is a large index, composed of a number of other subset indices, offering a general overview of how the crypto market is performing. The index doesn’t track the entire crypto industry, of course, given the fact that it consists of nearly 11,000 coins and tokens.

At the time of launch, it tracked over 240, which is still quite a lot. On top of that, there are some additional, narrower measures of the crypto market within the BDM. This includes subset indices such as the S&P Cryptocurrency LargeCap Index, the S&P Cryptocurrency BDM Ex-MegaCap Index, The S&P Cryptocurrency BDM Ex-LargeCap Index, and the S&P Cryptocurrency LargeCap Ex-MegaCap Index.

The first one, the S&P Cryptocurrency LargeCap Index, measures the performance of coins with the largest market cap. The next one measures the broad digital market, only without Bitcoin and Ethereum. The third one, the S&P Cryptocurrency BDM Ex-LargeCap index, also measures the broad crypto market, but it doesn’t only exclude BTC and ETH, but also other coins with the greatest market cap.

Finally, the last one measures the performance of assets with the largest market caps, but without BTC and ETH.

Crypto indices continue to pile up

Peter Roffman, the S&P DJI’s Global Head of Innovation and Strategy, commented on the new move. He said that the firm is very excited to bring this level of transparency to the crypto market and start offering one of the broadest snapshots of this asset class. The company was impressed with the growth of the crypto industry and its assets, which has been advancing faster than ever in history throughout 2021.

Of course, this is not the first time something like this was created, as there was a pre-existing list of Digital Market Indices that S&P was measuring. However, the new indices significantly expanded that list, bringing greater transparency, as Roffman noted. Some examples of the existing indexes include the likes of the S&P Bitcoin Index, the S&P Crypto Mega Cap Index, and S&P Ethereum Index.

One thing to note, however, is that both new and old digital market indices are using the same source of cryptocurrency data — a data provider known as Lukka. But, despite this, the addition of new indices will provide additional insight and reassurance to investors that are interested in the crypto space. They will provide reliable data, help reduce risk, and help traders and investors be a bit better prepared to face the volatility of the cryptocurrency industry.

The crypto sector continues to struggle

The move further shows that there is genuine interest in the crypto industry by some of the largest players, which continues to encourage companies to keep launching new products. Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency industry still continues to struggle in regards to the prices, which started dropping in mid-May.

The industry has been hit with several moves and developments that have not been particularly encouraging, including Tesla’s decision to stop accepting BTC payments, China’s newest crackdown on Bitcoin miners, and alike. Bitcoin itself is currently trading in the red, despite recent rumors that Apple may have made a massive investment, and that it might announce it soon.

With the rumors lacking confirmation still, there is no encouragement for users to return to investing and pumping the coin’s price further up. Bitcoin currently sits slightly below its largest support at $32,000, although a recovery beyond this level, and potentially back to $36k might yet arrive, as these are the levels between which BTC has been fluctuating over the past month.