Cryptocurrency mining firm Bitmain announced the launch of a cryptocurrency index this Friday.
The Beijing-based firm’s index should serve as a useful benchmarking tool for cryptocurrency investors.
That may sound like a technicality, but it’s something that has been sorely lacking in the cryptocurrency market.
Just this week, Jay Clayton, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said that a cryptocurrency exchange traded fund (ETF) is still a long way off.
Part of the reason for that, Clayton told CNBC reporters, is the lack of pricing data available to investors.
Obviously, a major part of constructing an ETF is solid price data, and Bitmain’s newest could help that process.
Denominated in US dollars, the new service has several data outputs.
Firstly, there is a real-time spot price. This is, according to the cryptocurrency mining firm, updated every second.
Next, there is a reference price that is published once a day at 10:00 am Hong Kong time (02:00 am London time).
The index also lists the spot prices of the 17 top Cryptocurrencies by their market capitalization.
Aside from this index, Bitmain is also releasing the Bitmain Crypto Large Cap 10 Index (BLC 10).
This will, according to the firm, track a basket of the ten largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Prices are updated for the index every second.
“The index [has been] developed,” said Bitmain in an explainer document, “to provide institutional and retail investors with transparent, timely, methodology-based, and investable benchmark of the most active cryptocurrencies traded globally.”
Bitmain - not the only index around
Bitmain isn’t the only company to have had a stab at creating a benchmark price for cryptocurrencies.
The wonderful Finance Magnates Intelligence Department has made a cryptocurrency performance benchmark.
A proprietary index of the Finance Magnates Intelligence Department, the Cryptocurrencies Performance Benchmark measures the condition of the main cryptocurrency markets.
It is composed of the four biggest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization and tracks their price change.
Currently, these are Bitcoin , Ethereum, Ripple (XRP) and BitcoinCash. The initial value of the benchmark on September 30, 2017, was 5,000 points.
