What Is the Nasdaq Crypto Index (NCI)?

If you come from the world of traditional stock investing, you're familiar with indexes like the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq-100. These are powerful tools that give you a single, reliable snapshot of the entire market's health and performance.

But what if you wanted a similar, trusted benchmark for the crypto market?

That's precisely why the Nasdaq Crypto Index (NCI) was created. It's a bridge between the world of traditional finance and the new digital asset class. As your guide, I'll explain what the NCI is, how it works, and how you can use it to make smarter investment decisions.

What is the Nasdaq Crypto Index (NCI)?

The Nasdaq Crypto Index (NCI) is a financial index designed to provide a real-time, representative benchmark for the performance of the cryptocurrency market. It was developed by Nasdaq in partnership with the Brazilian asset manager Hashdex.

Think of it as the S&P 500 for crypto. Instead of tracking 500 top US stocks, the NCI tracks a basket of the largest and most liquid cryptocurrencies, giving you a simple way to answer the question: "How is the crypto market doing today?"

How Does the NCI Work?

An index is only as good as its rules. The NCI uses a strict, transparent methodology to decide which assets get included, ensuring it represents the institutional-grade segment of the market. Key criteria include:

• High Market Capitalization: The assets must be among the largest in the crypto space.
• Strong Liquidity: The assets must be easily tradable on major, regulated exchanges.
• Institutional Custody Support: The assets must be supported by trusted, institutional-grade custodians.

The index is rebalanced quarterly to ensure it accurately reflects the current state of the market, adding or removing assets as they meet or fail to meet the criteria.

What's Inside the Cryptocurrency Index?

While the exact weightings change, the NCI is consistently dominated by the "blue-chip" assets of the crypto world. You will always find the two largest and most established players at the core of the index:

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH)

Other large-cap assets that have been included based on the criteria are projects like Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), and Polygon (MATIC).

How Investors Use the Crypto Index

You can't directly "buy" the NCI on a spot exchange, but savvy investors use it in three powerful ways:

• As a Market Barometer: It's the cleanest way to gauge overall market sentiment. If the NCI is up 3%, you know it's a generally positive day for the major crypto assets.
• As a Performance Benchmark: You can compare the performance of your own crypto portfolio against the NCI. Are you outperforming or underperforming the market? The index gives you an objective answer.
• As an Investment Guide: The NCI effectively serves as a pre-vetted list of what institutional players consider to be the most significant and investable assets in the crypto space. It's a fantastic starting point for your own research.

From Index to Action

The Nasdaq Crypto Index provides the map—it shows you which assets are leading the market. The next logical step is to use that map to make your own investment decisions. To do that, you need a platform that offers direct access to these top-tier assets with professional-grade security and liquidity.

Ready to act on market insights? Acquire the blue-chip assets that make up the core of the crypto market, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, on the BYDFi spot market.

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