S&P Global Launches Groundbreaking Digital Markets 50 Index Combining Crypto and Blockchain Stocks
On Tuesday, S&P Global, the company behind the famous S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average, announced the launch of its first hybrid
Quick overview
- S&P Global has launched its first hybrid benchmark, the Digital Markets 50 Index, combining cryptocurrencies and publicly traded blockchain companies.
- The index will track 15 major cryptocurrencies and 35 blockchain-related firms, reflecting the growing acceptance of digital assets in traditional finance.
- Investors will have access to a tokenized version of the index through Dinari's upcoming 'dShare' product, allowing for investment in both U.S. stocks and digital assets.
- The Digital Markets 50 Index represents a significant step in providing a standardized approach to evaluating the performance of the evolving crypto ecosystem.
On Tuesday, S&P Global, the company behind the famous S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average, announced the launch of its first hybrid benchmark that combines cryptocurrencies with publicly traded blockchain companies. This is a big step forward for Wall Street’s acceptance of digital assets.
The S&P Digital Markets 50 Index will follow 50 parts of the crypto economy: 15 main cryptocurrencies and 35 publicly traded firms that work with digital assets, blockchain infrastructure, and other technologies that are related to them. The move shows that more and more institutions are realizing that digital assets have grown from risky investments to established market sectors that need conventional benchmarks.
“Cryptocurrencies and the larger digital asset industry have gone from being on the fringes to playing a more important role in global markets,” said Cameron Drinkwater, Chief Product and Operations Officer at S&P Dow Jones Indices. The new index gives investors “consistent, rules-based tools” to compare performance in both traditional stock markets and decentralized networks.
Strict Criteria and Tokenized Access
The index has strict rules. For example, cryptocurrencies must have a market value of at least $300 million, and blockchain-related stocks must have a market capitalization of at least $100 million. Right now, about 276 cryptocurrencies meet these standards. No one part can make up more than 5% of the index’s overall weight, which makes sure that it is diverse. The final list of constituents hasn’t been made public yet, but plausible possibilities are the Bitcoin treasury firm Strategy, the crypto exchange Coinbase, and the Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms.
In a new twist, S&P worked with Dinari, a tokenization business that focuses on on-chain public assets, to make an investable version of the benchmark. Dinari plans to release a tokenized “dShare” product before the end of the year that will let investors directly access it using blockchain infrastructure.
Anna Wroblewska, Dinari’s Chief Business Officer, said, “We’re not just tokenizing an index by making the S&P Digital Markets 50 investible via dShares. We’re also showing how blockchain infrastructure can modernize trusted benchmarks.” “For the first time, investors can buy U.S. stocks and digital assets in one clear product.”
Broader Market Context
The debut comes at a time when more and more people are interested in investing in cryptocurrencies. Coinbase’s stock has gone up 55% in 2025, whereas Strategy’s has gone up 24%. Bitcoin recently reached fresh all-time highs, which made people more confident in stocks tied to cryptocurrencies. In September, the trading platform Robinhood joined the S&P 500. This shows that companies that make it easier to trade digital assets are becoming more well-known.
The Digital Markets 50 is the newest addition to S&P’s growing collection of digital asset benchmarks, which also includes the S&P Cryptocurrency Indices and S&P Digital Market Indices. The new index itself can’t be directly invested in, but it is a basis for exchange-traded funds and other investment products, including the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, which monitors the index it is named after.
The hybrid structure is S&P’s first attempt to combine stocks and cryptocurrencies into one index. The company argues this wouldn’t have been possible without tokenization technology. The index will follow S&P’s governance guidelines for quarterly rebalancing.
The Digital Markets 50 Index puts S&P Global at the crossroads of traditional finance and blockchain innovation. It gives investors a standard way to look at the crypto ecosystem as it comes together.
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