“S&P 500” for crypto comes as segment gains “established role in global markets,” S&P exec says
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Firms continue responding to investor calls for diversified exposure to a crypto space becoming more entwined with the traditional financial system.
S&P Global is a few weeks from offering a Digital Markets 50 Index that would blend 15 tokens with 35 crypto-linked equities involved in digital asset operations, infrastructure, financial services, blockchain applications, etc. This mix of crypto stocks and tokens is a first for the index giant.
The company did not reveal the index’s specific holdings, but noted tokens would be selected from the S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Market Index (a benchmark with BTC, ETH, XRP, BNB and SOL as its top five holdings). Here’s that index’s track record:
This comes as the crypto segment has moved “from the margins into a more established role in global markets,” S&P Dow Jones Indices chief product/ops officer Cameron Drinkwater said. Market participants are gravitating to crypto for diversification, growth or innovation strategies, he added.
This isn’t some crypto-focused firm building an index like this. It’s the financial goliath who brought you the S&P 500. Ever heard of it?
Dinari helped design the index and plans to create a token that tracks the benchmark by the end of 2025. The company offers what it calls dShares — 150 or so tokenized stocks and ETFs that are backed 1:1 by off-chain assets.
“It was clear to us that there’s a need for the ‘S&P 500’ of the space,” Dinari chief business officer Anna Wroblewska told me. “Who better to build it with than the incredible S&P team.”
Wroblewska told me in May that the company was focused on bringing the entire stock market onchain. Its subsidiary, Dinari Securities, received a broker-dealer registration with the SEC and FINRA the following month.
“In the longer term, Dinari’s mission is to help facilitate a global, pooled on-chain secondary market for tokenized stocks and other RWAs,” Wroblewska noted at the time. “Imagine, for example, the cross-asset opportunities if NYSE and the CBOE and the CME were all unified in one place that all market participants could access.”
Today, the Dinari executive added that her firm is focused on scaling tokenized equities while “preserving the ownership rights and control that make US capital markets function so well.” I’m also told to keep an eye out for Dinari’s US launch and regulated 24/7 trading.
Let’s go back to indexes for a moment, as CoinShares is set to introduce an ETF that tracks the CoinShares-Compass Altcoins Index.
That benchmark allocates to emerging layer-1 alternatives across three themes: high-speed blockchains, interoperability protocols and growing platforms. The ETF will offer this exposure by investing in ETPs listed in the US, Canada, the UK and EU.
Its ticker will be DIME — clever, given its plan to allocate to 10 tokens:
These upcoming launches focused on diversification come after the Grayscale CoinDesk Crypto 5 ETF — holding BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL and ADA — hit the NYSE Arca last month. Hashdex recently added several assets to its crypto index ETF — tracking a benchmark CIO Samir Kerbage said could one day hold 200 assets.
We’re also waiting for more single-asset crypto ETF approvals in the US. Given recent S-1 amendments, the SEC seems focused on greenlighting solana products first.
A person close to those filings told me there’s no clear approval timeline at the moment given the government shutdown has paused SEC reviews. “We expect the process to move quickly once the government reopens,” they added.
After two funding proposals failed in the Senate last night, it’s hard to know when that will happen.
