Grayscale Partners With FTSE Russell for New Crypto Indexes Business

U.S. crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments has entered into a partnership with FTSE Russell – the index division of London Stock Exchange parent LSE Group – to create a new crypto indexes business.

They revealed five indexes that track the performance of different crypto sectors, including currencies, smart contract platforms, financials, consumer and culture, and utilities and services, the companies announced Tuesday.

Some indexes serve as the basis for exchange-traded products like ETFs, and the partnership comes as Grayscale seeks to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into an ETF. CoinDesk Indices, a division of CoinDesk, provides the benchmarks that serve as the basis for GBTC and the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), and the FTSE partnership doesn’t involve that. (Both Grayscale and CoinDesk are owned by Digital Currency Group.)

“Investors have increasingly expressed interest in diversifying beyond crypto’s largest assets,” Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein said in a statement. “Many look to Grayscale to better understand this robust, evolving asset class,” he added. “Grayscale Crypto Sectors formalizes our specialized view of the crypto landscape.”

London-based FTSE Russell currently benchmarks around $20 trillion in assets. The company’s crypto indexes are constructed by Digital Asset Research, a New York-based provider of crypto data.