The largest crypto exchange in the U.S. is launching its own version of the S&P 500 — sort of. Coinbase is launching the Coinbase 50 Index, or Coin50, which provides investors with a broad and accessible tool to better understand how the market is performing as a whole.
As the crypto industry matures and institutional investors enter the space, Coinbase is seeking to evolve alongside it by offering a reliable measurement that accurately portrays the growing size and diversity of the market. Head of institutional products at Coinbase Greg Tusar told Fortune that he hopes the index will become the go-to benchmark for investors.
“What we’re trying to do is establish a benchmark that is not specific to any asset, that’s trying to give what is the broad basket of crypto assets doing, the same way that you gauge the performance of the equity markets through the S&P 500,” Tusar said.
The index will serve as an investment product as well, only available to eligible traders outside the U.S due to its status as a perpetual future — a type of derivative contract, like call or put options, without a specific expiration date that is not available in the U.S. Investment is not the main goal of the product, Tusar told Fortune. Instead, he envisions it as a reference to help people identify market trends and aid in price discovery, rather than depending solely on Bitcoin, which often doesn’t show the whole picture.
“I think Bitcoin is used as that benchmark, simply because there isn’t anything else to put in its place,” Tusar said. The Coin50 provides a more comprehensive view of the market by including Bitcoin and the other top 49 cryptocurrencies weighted by market cap.
Tusar said that he believes Bitcoin’s dominance will decrease over time, making it less and less of a useful benchmark and creating the need for a tool like the Coin50. “I think as the crypto economy grows, as crypto fulfills its mission, that will naturally broaden out the number of layer ones, the number of other tokens… and establishing this now sets us up for that future,” Tusar said.
The index will rebalance quarterly as market share fluctuates and assets fall out of the top 50. Assets included in the index must satisfy a list of standards that scrutinize each asset based on their token economics, blockchain infrastructure and security. Anyone, with or without a Coinbase account, will be able to access this tool in various places including on the Coinbase website and on the Coinbase app. Investors outside the U.S. will be able to access the perpetual futures contracts through the Coinbase Advanced application.
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