Bitcoin, Ethereum Join Wall Street As S&P Dow Jones Launches Crypto Indexes

World¡¯s leading index provider S&P Dow Jones Indices has brought the two largest and most prominent cryptocurrencies--Bitcoin and Ethereum--to Wall Street with the launch of three new cryptocurrency indexes around them.

Reuters

At launch, the S&P Digital Market Indices will include S&P Bitcoin Index, S&P Ethereum Index and S&P Cryptocurrency MegaCap Index. These indices will measure the performance of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a market cap weighting of Bitcoin and Ethereum, respectively.

S&P Dow Jones Indices

The list will further expand to include additional coins and broader-based indices such as large cap and broad market benchmarks later this year, the division of financial data provider S&P Global said.

This new development marks the growing acceptance of cryptocurrencies in the mainstream financial world as the crypto market continues to soar to an astronomical level.

Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, has seen a massive rally in prices after recording a big influx of investors from large-scale institutions and a growing number of vendors accepting bitcoin as a form of payment. Late last year, Paypal announced that customers can buy, hold and sell bitcoin directly from their PayPal accounts and earlier in March, Elon Musk tweeted that people can purchase a Tesla with bitcoin.

Representative Visual | Indiatimes

Bitcoin prices recovered from a five-day slump a fortnight ago that saw the cryptocurrency tumble below $50,000 for the first time in a month. But the cryptocurrency, which was trading at about $31,000 by the end of January, did soar to an all-time high of over $64,870 in mid-April, and is currently trading at $55,740.

Meanwhile, Ethereum, the blockchain-based computer network behind the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, crossed the $3,000 milestone for the first time on Sunday and is currently trading at $3,385. A year ago, ether traded at just $205 and has since exploded more than 1,600 per cent.

Structurally, these cryptocurrencies are creating their own new, evolving, decentralized markets--meaning that no one entity can fully control or halt the use of these currencies, Sharon Liebowitz, Senior Director at S&P Dow Jones Indices wrote in a blog.

Reuters

¡°Our cryptocurrency indices seek to address some of the challenges the industry is currently facing, including the issue of transparency.¡±

"Traditional financial markets and digital assets are no longer mutually exclusive markets," Peter Roffman, Global Head of Innovation and Strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement.

"As cryptocurrency becomes more mainstream, investors now have access to reliable and transparent benchmarks backed by institutional quality pricing data."

The indices will use pricing data from Lukka, a crypto software and data provider, to determine the eligibility universe and pricing of individual constituents.