Dogecoin is out; bitcoin diamond is in. So go the rules of the S&P’s new benchmark for the crypto sector.
CoinDesk obtained a list of the 243 digital assets in the S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Market (BDM) Index. A cursory analysis found that Wall Street’s latest attempt to measure returns from the “broad investable universe” ventured to crypto’s outermost rings.
An eclectic mix of name-brand blockchains and lesser-known protocols are included in S&P’s BDM. Weighted according to the index-maker’s rulebook, the coins’ collective returns crunch down to a point-based performance figure. That figure hovered around 2,676 at press time, down 14% for the month of July.
For comparison, S&P’s bitcoin tracker showed it down 450.86 points, or 11.5%, in the same time period.
BDM certainly featured bitcoin and its end-of-June market cap of over $650 billion. But the index, whose average market cap was $4.8 billion according to S&P, largely consisted of small- and mid-cap cryptos whose stories are unknown to the average banker.
One such token is skycoin, a $15 million small-cap with about $387,000 in trading volume. CoinGecko ranked it in the 660 neighborhood by valuation. In November 2018, now-deceased crypto iconoclast John McAfee had the coin’s logo tattooed on his back.
That might be a result of S&P’s inclusion policies. The committee overseeing BDM can nix a coin that “may be an unregistered security,” that has “privacy features” or that faces “potential market disruption,” according to governance documents.
But dogecoin, the bitcoin spin-off that best encapsulated the zany boom times of memecoin season, is nowhere on the list.
An FAQ page explains that coins must have a white paper to make the cut. Dogecoin doesn't have one, S&P's Raymond McConville told CoinDesk.
UPDATE: (July 22, 12:17 EDT) This article has been updated to clarify why dogecoin is not included in the index.