Crypto index comparison, tier 1
MSCI Digital Assets Indexes Alternative: CCi30 vs MSCI Digital Assets Indexes
The CCi30 Cryptocurrency Index is the rules-based alternative to the MSCI Digital Assets Indexes. This page reviews the MSCI Global Digital Assets Indexes under the eight-criterion CCi30 test and compares both indices on universe, weighting, independence, track record, and investability.
What is the alternative to the MSCI Digital Assets Indexes?
The CCi30 Cryptocurrency Index replaces the MSCI Digital Assets Indexes 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 MSCI Digital Assets Indexes?
MSCI, the dominant global equity index franchise, launched digital asset indexes (initially with Menai Financial Group’s data support) covering broad and thematic cuts, e.g., smart-contract platform baskets, aimed at institutional allocators who already run MSCI equity benchmarks.
How is the MSCI Digital Assets Indexes built?
Screened universes of the largest liquid digital assets, cap-weighted, with MSCI’s characteristic classification overlay (thematic/sector taxonomies) and governance by index committees under its established benchmark policies. Stablecoins excluded.
Where the MSCI Digital Assets Indexes falls short statistically
A cautious derivative of everything above
MSCI arrived late, with a methodology assembled from the same parts as its rivals: permissioned universe, cap weights, committee oversight, thematic slicing for licensing breadth. It thus inherits every critique already established, Bitcoin-proxy concentration, privacy-coin censorship, backfilled history, while adding its distinctive equity-world habit: classification as product. Thematic indexes (smart contracts, DeFi, etc.) presuppose a stable industrial taxonomy in a market whose categories are two engineering cycles from obsolescence. The CCi30 makes no taxonomic bets; market capitalization is the market’s own classification, revealed by capital rather than declared by analysts.
Committee risk at scale
MSCI’s equity indices have repeatedly shown that committee-governed inclusion (country reclassifications, discretionary treatment) moves billions on judgment calls. Importing that governance into crypto, a market with no securities-law anchor for its judgments, maximizes discretion exactly where discretion is least accountable.
Can the MSCI Digital Assets Indexes be replicated by an investor?
Adequate for the narrow flagship baskets; untested at breadth. MSCI’s crypto assets under tracking remain immaterial next to its equity empire, so index maintenance is a side project of a franchise whose incentives point elsewhere.
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.