S&P Dow Jones Indices and Pantera Capital have launched an 18-asset crypto index that excludes Bitcoin and ranks eligible blockchain networks by the protocol income generated through the earlier two quarters.
Abstract
- S&P and Pantera launched an 18-asset crypto index based mostly on protocol income.
- Bitcoin and XRP did not qualify below the benchmark’s revenue-focused choice guidelines.
- Ether, BNB, Solana, TRON and Hyperliquid maintain the 5 largest positions.
In line with a joint announcement from the businesses, the S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index is designed to measure established community exercise as a substitute of relying solely on token costs or market capitalization. The benchmark might help funding merchandise, institutional allocations, and actively managed digital asset portfolios.
Bitcoin and XRP are the biggest belongings from the S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Asset Index that did not enter the brand new benchmark, S&P Dow Jones Indices wrote in an Indexology weblog submit. Their absence comes from the index’s income necessities relatively than their market worth, liquidity, or title recognition.
S&P Dow Jones Indices CEO Kathy Clay advised CNBC that Bitcoin didn’t qualify as a result of it isn’t a revenue-generating protocol below the index’s guidelines.
“Bitcoin shouldn’t be in there as a result of it’s actually not a type of revenue-generating protocols that we predict belongs on this index and meets the entire standards.”
In contrast to smart-contract platforms, Bitcoin rewards miners with newly issued cash and transaction charges for securing its community. S&P’s methodology, nevertheless, focuses on income linked to exercise throughout protocols and functions, which favors blockchains that acquire charges from transactions, buying and selling and different companies.
Clay advised CNBC that S&P wished to use rules utilized in conventional fairness indexes to digital belongings by measuring elements that matter to skilled buyers. The strategy creates a benchmark centered on the financial exercise of blockchain networks relatively than the scale of their tokens alone.
Protocol income determines which crypto belongings qualify
Drawn from the S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Asset Index, the eligible universe should first move minimal necessities for protocol income, market capitalization and liquidity, in line with the businesses. Property that clear these screens are ranked by their whole protocol income throughout the 2 most up-to-date quarters.
Adjusted market capitalization then determines the burden of every qualifying asset. Underneath the index guidelines, the biggest constituent can’t exceed 35%, whereas the opposite holdings are typically restricted to twenty%.
Quarterly rebalancing permits the benchmark so as to add, take away or resize constituents as their income, liquidity and market worth change. Consequently, an asset’s place is determined by continued community use in addition to its capacity to fulfill the index’s buying and selling necessities.
Ether, BNB, Solana, TRON and Hyperliquid’s HYPE token maintain the 5 largest positions at launch, in line with S&P’s Indexology submit. Every asset represents a community that collects income from transactions or functions working by means of its infrastructure.
By comparability, many crypto benchmarks give Bitcoin their largest allocation as a result of they use market capitalization as the principle weighting measure. Bitcoin represented about 57% of the whole cryptocurrency market when the index was launched, in line with CoinGecko knowledge cited by Investopedia.
The Nasdaq CME Crypto Index assigned Bitcoin a weighting of almost 77%, whereas Ether held about 13%, Investopedia reported. The FTSE Digital Asset All Cap Index additionally positioned roughly 75% of its weight in Bitcoin, exhibiting how market-cap-based strategies can focus portfolios within the largest asset.
S&P’s new benchmark doesn’t take away market capitalization from the calculation fully. As a substitute, the methodology makes use of income to resolve which belongings qualify and the way they rank earlier than adjusted market worth units their ultimate weights.
Pantera Capital’s participation additionally connects the index with a crypto-focused funding supervisor that has backed blockchain initiatives and digital belongings. Underneath the joint framework, S&P gives its index building and governance expertise whereas Pantera contributes data of blockchain networks and their financial fashions.
Fund suppliers are increasing multi-asset crypto publicity
The revenue-based index follows S&P Dow Jones Indices’ launch of the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index in October 2025. That benchmark combines 15 cryptocurrencies with 35 publicly traded corporations concerned in digital asset infrastructure and companies, in line with S&P’s index description.
Hashdex has additionally expanded index-based crypto investing by means of the Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF. The supervisor says the fund makes use of eligibility checks masking market dimension, liquidity, custody and U.S. regulatory necessities earlier than belongings can enter its benchmark.
Franklin Templeton entered the class in February 2025 with its Franklin Crypto Index ETF, or EZPZ. At launch, the fund tracked Bitcoin and Ether by means of the CF Institutional Digital Asset Index, in line with the agency’s launch announcement.
Franklin later expanded the fund’s underlying index to incorporate XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, Cardano, Stellar and Chainlink alongside Bitcoin and Ether, in line with the supervisor’s present product data. The additions present how rules-based crypto funds can change their holdings when extra belongings meet regulatory and funding necessities.
MarketVector Indexes and Coinbase Asset Administration took one other route in April by introducing the Coinbase Retailer of Worth Index. Their benchmark combines Bitcoin with tokenized gold and applies inverse-volatility weighting, giving much less weight to the asset exhibiting greater worth swings.
Bitwise chief funding officer Matt Hougan predicted in December that crypto index funds would change into vital throughout 2026 as a result of the market was rising extra complicated and its use circumstances had been multiplying. In a Bitwise funding memo, Hougan argued that diversified funds may assist buyers acquire publicity with out having to establish each eventual winner.
The S&P Pantera index applies that diversification concept to revenue-producing networks, leaving the market’s largest cryptocurrency exterior the benchmark whereas giving main positions to blockchains with measurable price exercise.
