[ad_1]
S&P Dow Jones Indices, a major financial data company, said Thursday that it will launch a customizable cryptocurrency indexing service in partnership with crypto data provider Lukka in 2021.
The upcoming product is set to become a hub for cryptocurrency price data at a time when more Wall Street investors are looking than ever. This year’s bull run is said to be led by institutions seeking to expose themselves to bitcoin.
“We watched [the digital asset space] and we believe it is in an institutional focus for maturity, where companies like ours want to enter and contribute to market transparency, ”said Peter Roffman, global head of innovation and strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Growing investor interest “has reinforced the need for reliable price data,” S&P DJI said in a press release.
Wall Street already had its share of crypto indices to choose from. The Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index has been providing quotes on highly liquid cryptocurrencies since 2018. Nasdaq, the high-tech exchange, has listed more crypto indices in recent years.
Roffman declined to specify how the S & P / Lukka crypto indices would stack up against its competitors. But he said the “institutional quality” of the partners will combine for a “market leading offering”.
“It will really employ best practices, both in terms of coin price, coin selection, weighting, you know, and all the concomitant transparency that we bring to the market,” he said.
Lukka CEO Robert Materazzi said his company’s “Lukka Prime” pricing methodology “is part of our relationship with S&P.”
While the product represents S&P’s entry into cryptocurrency indexing, a number of factors indicate that the rating conglomerate is positioning itself to capitalize even more on the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. Parent company S&P Global has hired blockchain engineers in the past few months.
Also noteworthy is the planned acquisition by S&P of the competitor IHS Markit for 44 billion dollars. If the deal overrides antitrust regulators, it would transform S&P into the undisputed data behemoth of Wall Street.
It would also link S&P to Lukka’s link with IHS Markit. In mid-November, Lukka agreed to offer crypto data to Street via IHS. Executives from both companies were reluctant to outline the full scope of that offering at the time.
Raymond McConville, a spokesperson for S&P DJI, declined to comment on the announced merger of S&P Global with IHS Markit.
UPDATE (12/3/2020 2:30 PM EST): This story has been updated with additional comments from S&P executives and Lukka.
