S&P Dow Jones releases 5 more cryptocurrency indices

According to a company statement, the financial index provider S&P Dow Jones has launched five new cryptocurrency index products, bringing its total number of crypto indices to eight. It’s the first major expansion of S&P’s crypto benchmarking tools since entering the market in May.

Headlining the tranche is a “broad digital market (BDM)” index that includes over 240 coins, a press release said. “The new subindices also provide different slices and dices of the BDM by market cap so that investors can track different segments of the market,” an S&P spokesperson told CoinDesk.

Within the BDM are some other, narrower measures of the digital market. These subset indices, and their roles, are as follows:

• The S&P Cryptocurrency LargeCap Index – Specifically measures the performance of the constituents with the greatest market caps.
• The S&P Cryptocurrency BDM Ex-MegaCap Index – A measure of the broad digital market, but excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum.
• The S&P Cryptocurrency BDM Ex-LargeCap Index – A measure of the broad digital market, but excluding constituents with the greatest market caps.
• The S&P Cryptocurrency LargeCap Ex-MegaCap Index – Measures the performance of constituents with the highest market caps but excludes Bitcoin and Ethereum.

“The expansion of our Digital Market Indices family gives one of the broadest snapshots yet of this rapidly growing asset class with the ability to slice and dice by market cap,” said Peter Roffman, global head of innovation and strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “We’re excited to bring this significant level of additional transparency to the cryptocurrency market.”

Previously, S&P spokesman Ray McConville told CoinDesk that this methodology better conveys asset appreciation over time. A July 2021 methodology document describes S&P’s mathematical process for calculating index points.

The new indices expand a pre-existing list of Digital Market Indices measured by S&P. These include the S&P Bitcoin Index, S&P Ethereum Index, and the S&P Crypto Mega Cap Index (a combination of the former two).