Crypto index comparison, tier 4
GMCI Indices Alternative: CCi30 vs GMCI 30
The CCi30 Cryptocurrency Index is the rules-based alternative to the GMCI Indices. This page reviews the GMCI family (GMCI 30, GMCI Layer 1, GMCI Layer 2, and the Meme index) under the eight-criterion CCi30 test and compares both indices on universe, weighting, independence, track record, and investability.
What is the alternative to the GMCI Indices?
The CCi30 Cryptocurrency Index replaces the GMCI 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 GMCI Indices?
GMCI is a recent index provider, launched in February 2024 by the crypto news outlet The Block together with the market maker Wintermute. Its flagship, the GMCI 30, tracks the top 30 digital assets by circulating market capitalization, and sits alongside sector products including GMCI Layer 1, GMCI Layer 2 and a Meme index, around twelve indices in all. The family is distributed through The Block and is used as an underlying for crypto derivatives.
Where the GMCI Indices falls short statistically
The second independent convergence on thirty
After BITA’s Crypto 30, GMCI is another provider whose broadest product lands on exactly the constituent count the CCi30 Cryptocurrency Index derived from first principles: thirty.
The arithmetic keeps being rediscovered. Thirty is the point where statistical significance (the CCi30’s documented 99% confidence and 1.11% margin of error), roughly 90% capitalization coverage, and the liquidity cliff jointly bind. What the convergence lacks is the derivation. No published proof accompanies the number, capitalization weighting reintroduces the concentration the CCi30’s square-root scheme was designed to eliminate, and the same shelf carries a Meme index. A family that ranks joke tokens beside its market benchmark has a licensing catalog rather than a measurement philosophy.
A derivatives underlying, not a reference standard
The distribution channel reveals the design center: media dashboards and perpetual-futures venues, which is to say tradeable underlyings built for speculation.
It is the CD20 logic at a smaller scale. And with a February 2024 launch, the family’s history spans a fraction of a single market cycle. Every year of track record displayed before that date is reconstruction, not performance that anyone could have earned.
Independence is the structural problem
GMCI was founded by a media company and a market maker, and its indices serve as the underlying for index perpetuals on venues where that market maker is active.
The eight-criterion test treats independence as structural rather than procedural. The question is not whether an index is administered carefully, but whether anyone holding a position in the outcome helped decide what the index measures. An index co-founded by a trading firm and published by the outlet that reports on it answers that question twice over.
Should the GMCI Indices be used as a crypto market benchmark?
Flattering corroboration of the CCi30’s central number, minus the mathematics, the weighting theory, the independence, and the eleven-year live record. Arriving at thirty in 2024 is imitation. Deriving it in 2017 and publishing values since 2015 is the benchmark.
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.