Crypto Stocks and Currencies Earn Their Own S&P Index

The blue bloods in the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average will soon welcome their nouveau riche crypto-stock cousins into the family.

They’ll arrive via the new S&P Digital Markets 50 Index, which S&P Global announced Tuesday. In a fitting twist, fintech Dinari is collaborating with S&P to release an investable token that tracks the benchmark.

A Hybrid Approach

Rather than just 50 companies, the S&P Digital Markets 50 will include 15 cryptocurrencies alongside 35 companies from the broader crypto sector. While S&P has launched indices with multiple asset classes before, mixing stocks and cryptocurrencies is a new frontier. Equities listed on the index will be required to have a minimum market cap of $100 million, and cryptocurrencies will be required to have a minimum cap of $300 million. Single assets will be restricted to 5% of the index.

Crypto markets remain somewhat volatile, so indexing adds the appeal of smoothing out exposure. Institutional investors have grown increasingly interested in the crypto sector, especially as federal regulators have adopted a friendlier approach under the Trump administration. An EY survey of institutional investors earlier this year found that 85% reported increasing their allocations to digital assets in 2024, and a similar proportion plan to invest more. And 60% said they preferred to gain exposure through registered vehicles, such as diversified index funds and ETFs. The S&P index makes crypto practically mainstream: 

• “Cryptocurrencies and the broader digital asset industry have moved from the margins into a more established role in global markets,” Cameron Drinkwater, chief product officer at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “S&P DJI’s expanded index suite offers market participants consistent, rules-based tools to evaluate and gain exposure to this segment.”
• The companies and cryptocurrencies on the S&P Digital Markets 50 have yet to be named, and the index is still weeks from launch, but it’s not hard to see the appeal of the hybrid format. Bitcoin, which is up roughly 30% this year, hit a new all-time high of $126,080 on Monday, and crypto industry stocks like Coinbase (up 51% YTD), Circle (up 115%) and Strategy (up 13%) have been a hit among investors this year.

Check Your Wallet: If you have personal crypto holdings, a security check may be in order. Researchers at Elliptic said Tuesday that North Korean hackers have stolen more than $2 billion in crypto assets this year and warned that they are increasingly targeting crypto-wealthy individuals because they typically have less sophisticated safeguards than businesses.