Bloomberg has partnered with an asset management company Galaxy Digital Capital Management to launch The Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index (BGCI). Galaxy Digital Capital Management is an asset management firm founded by ex-Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund manager Michael Novogratz.
The BGCI has been created to “track the performance of the largest, most liquid portion of the cryptocurrency market.,” It is a market-cap weighted index, which means that cryptocurrencies with a larger market cap will comprise a higher percentage of the index.
At its inception, it comprises of the following ten cryptocurrencies denominated in US dollars: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, Dash, Monero, Ethereum Classic, and ZCash.
The index tracks different classes of the aforementioned digital currencies with the constituents being “diversified across different categories of digital assets, including stores of value, mediums of exchange, smart contract protocols, and privacy assets.”
The maximum cap of an index constituent is 30% while the minimum cap is 1%. This implies that even if the largest constituent dominates the overall market cap of cryptocurrencies by forming over 30% of the market cap, it will form only 30% of the index. The same logic applies to the minimum cap.
There were some interesting reactions from the general public on Twitter:
Dhanushan Anandarasa @DhanuAnandarasa:
Great stepping stone towards increasing the professionalism and authenticity of crypto as an investable asset class
Aventic @AventicFry:
This is exactly the kind of news to boost confidence. Let’s bring in more people and HODL on for some fun!
Though there are a few other crypto indices like Crypto Currency Index 30 (CCi30), which tracks the top 30 cryptocurrencies with the largest market cap, and CRypto IndeX (CRIX), which comprises of 20 constituents, the BGCI is significant because of mainstream names getting associated with this volatile instrument. The creation and adoption of this index can go a long way in eventual mass adoption of the largest cryptocurrencies.