Crypto index comparison, tier 1
FTSE Digital Asset Indices Alternative: CCi30 vs FTSE Digital Asset Indices
The CCi30 Cryptocurrency Index is the rules-based alternative to the FTSE Digital Asset Indices. This page reviews the FTSE Global Digital Asset Index Series (FTSE Russell / Digital Asset Research) under the eight-criterion CCi30 test and compares both indices on universe, weighting, independence, track record, and investability.
What is the alternative to the FTSE Digital Asset Indices?
The CCi30 Cryptocurrency Index replaces the FTSE Digital Asset Indices for investors who need a whole-market benchmark. The CCi30 holds the 30 largest cryptocurrencies by smoothed market capitalization, weights them by the square root of that figure, excludes stablecoins by rule, and has published live values since 1 January 2015.
- 30 constituents
- Square-root weighting
- Stablecoins excluded by rule
- Live since 1 January 2015
- Independent, fully rules-based
What is the FTSE Digital Asset Indices?
FTSE Russell (LSEG), in partnership with Digital Asset Research (DAR), operates a modular series spanning large-cap to micro-cap segments, sector indices, single-asset series, and the Digi 50, with reference pricing engineered to EU Benchmark (BMR) standards. It supplies indices for Eurex futures and Hashkey ETFs, with a few billion dollars tracking its products.
How is the FTSE Digital Asset Indices built?
The series is built on a double vetting engine: exchanges are screened across 21 qualifying criteria, and assets are individually screened for eligibility and trading viability before entering the universe. Indices are weighted by circulating (float) capitalization across capitalization bands.
Where the FTSE Digital Asset Indices falls short statistically
Superb machinery, misdirected
FTSE/DAR’s exchange-vetting apparatus genuinely addresses a real problem, fake volume and unreliable venue prints. Credit where due. But the same machinery becomes a filter of a different kind when its 21 criteria embed regulatory-licensure requirements: assets that trade deeply on venues outside the approved club are demoted or excluded regardless of their economic weight. Vetting prices is science; vetting assets by venue permission is politics. The CCi30 solves the price-quality problem differently, through smoothing (EWMA of market capitalization), which statistically suppresses the very anomalies FTSE’s committees adjudicate manually, while leaving the universe defined by market capitalization alone.
Modular fragmentation
A series that offers large-cap, mid-cap, micro-cap, sector, and single-asset slices offers no single answer to the only first-order question: what did the crypto market do? The proliferation of cuts is a licensing strategy, not a measurement philosophy. The CCi30 is one number with one meaning.
Cap-weighting within bands
inherits the concentration critique; the large-cap segment is, as everywhere, a Bitcoin sidecar.
Can the FTSE Digital Asset Indices be replicated by an investor?
The flagship broad series extends into micro-caps that no institutional portfolio can hold at meaningful size, while the investable cuts are narrow. FTSE thus sells representation and investability as separate products; the CCi30 delivers both in one instrument.
Method and sources
Methodology facts on this page come from the published documents of the provider; constituent lists change and should be re-verified before citation. The CCi30 rules are published in the methodology manual. The full comparison set is on the crypto index comparison hub, and the allocation calculator shows the CCi30 basket for any amount.