Crypto index comparison, tier 1
Nasdaq Crypto Index Alternative: CCi30 vs Nasdaq Crypto Index
The CCi30 Cryptocurrency Index is the rules-based alternative to the Nasdaq Crypto Index. This page reviews the Nasdaq Crypto Index (NCI) under the eight-criterion CCi30 test and compares both indices on universe, weighting, independence, track record, and investability.
What is the alternative to the Nasdaq Crypto Index?
The CCi30 Cryptocurrency Index replaces the Nasdaq Crypto Index 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 Nasdaq Crypto Index?
Launched in February 2021 with Brazilian asset manager Hashdex, the NCI is Nasdaq’s flagship crypto benchmark, designed, in Nasdaq’s own words, to be dynamic, broadly representative, and readily trackable. It now also underpins the Nasdaq CME Crypto Index offering distributed through CME Group, and serves as the benchmark for Hashdex ETFs.
How is the Nasdaq Crypto Index built?
The NCI’s defining feature is its investability screen: an asset qualifies only if it is supported by approved core exchanges and core custodians, institutionally acceptable, largely US-facing infrastructure. Within that filtered universe, weighting is by market capitalization, with periodic reconstitution.
Where the Nasdaq Crypto Index falls short statistically
A compliance filter marketed as a methodology
The NCI’s central innovation is to let custodians define the asset class. Whatever Coinbase Custody and its peers will hold is the index universe; whatever they won’t, privacy coins above all, does not exist. This is the purest expression of the category error running through all Tier 1 indices: the confusion of what US institutions are permitted to touch with what the cryptocurrency market is. Monero’s exclusion is not a data problem; Monero has deep global liquidity. It is a policy decision, outsourced to custodians, and it means the NCI structurally understates exactly the property, censorship resistance, that gives cryptocurrency its economic meaning.
Circularity
Nasdaq sells listings and market services to the crypto industry; Hashdex sells funds benchmarked to the index it co-created. The benchmark is embedded in the product pipeline it is supposed to measure, a thermometer manufactured by the fever.
Cap-weighted concentration
, again: BTC plus ETH have persistently constituted the overwhelming majority of index weight, making the NCI’s “diverse pool of digital assets” a rounding error away from a two-coin portfolio.
Can the Nasdaq Crypto Index be replicated by an investor?
Excellent, by construction, since the universe is defined by custodial availability. But note what this proves: investability constraints belong in the implementation of a portfolio, not in the definition of a market. The CCi30 keeps these layers separate, the index measures the market; the tracking portfolio handles execution. The NCI collapses them and thereby measures neither well.
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.