What Are Indexes?

Indexes first came into existence as a way for investors to measure the United States’ equity market.

In 1884 Charles Dow and Edward Jones created the Dow Jones Average (later the Dow Jones Transportation Average). The index tracked eleven stocks – nine railroad and two industrial companies, but when Dow and Jones realized that industrial companies were a better proxy for the United States speculative markets, they created a new index: the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA).

The DJIA has since become one of the leading indicators for the broader US stock market. Since then, indexes have expanded to cover basically every segment of the investable universe, ranging from the entire global stock market to the most niche investment themes and geographies.

Charles Dow

American journalist

Edward Jones

U.S. statistician and journalist

Their value as a market indicator allows indexes to be deployed in a variety of helpful use cases.

Investors can utilize indexes to evaluate their investment performance by comparing its risk and returns to a broader, representative market benchmark as well as to backtest potential investment thesis.

Indexes also enable passive investing as they are the basis for index-linked financial products, such as mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs). Therefore, as the crypto universe expands, indexes will provide a transparent and  invaluable tool for all market participants looking to understand and gain exposure to digital assets.

Creating and maintaining indexes requires a deep understanding of an asset class.

As the leading crypto intelligence provider, Coin Metrics is able to leverage our self-sourced data, insight, and expertise to create independent and transparent indexes – Coin Metrics Bletchley Indexes (CMBI). CMBI offerings currently include single assets such as CMBI Bitcoin and CMBI Ethereum, multi-asset benchmarks such as the CMBI 10, and thematic indexes such as CMBI Bitcoin Hash Rate.