Bitmain, the leading cryptocurrency mining company, has launched a digital currency index.
China-based Bitmain, the leading manufacturer of mining equipment, announced earlier on Friday the launch of a cryptocurrency index.
The index from the company that runs the most extensive mining pools in the world will serve as a useful reference and benchmark for investors.
Need for Reliable Pricing Data
The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Jay Clayton, earlier this week had mentioned that a cryptocurrency-based exchange traded fund (ETF) is still a long way off.
According to Clayton, the unavailability of pricing data to investors is one of the hurdles in the way for an ETF. A reliable pricing data feed is required to construct an ETF, and it is expected that Bitmain’s index could chip in.
Details of the Index
The index will be denominated in U.S. dollars and will provide multiple data outputs which include:
- A real-time spot price which is updated every second.
- A reference price that is published once a day at 10:00 am Hong Kong time.
- Spot prices of the 17 top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
Bitmain is also launching the Bitmain Crypto Large Cap 10 Index (BLC 10). This index, it is reported, will track a basket of the ten largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. The prices for BLC 10 are updated every second.
Bitmain, in a document, stated:
The index [has been] developed to provide institutional and retail investors with transparent, timely, methodology-based, and investable benchmark of the most active cryptocurrencies traded globally.
The company has been in the news recently for many reasons. Earlier in November, Live Bitcoin News had reported about Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu being stripped of his executive powers by the firm’s board in a possible IPO-related reshuffle.
Bitmain had in September filed its IPO application on the Hong Kong stock exchange. However, declining revenues since the second quarter of this year, owing to the downturn in the cryptocurrency market and the tariffs imposed by Trump administration, has hit the company’s revenues and profits.
The company was also embroiled in the recent controversial Bitcoin Cash hard fork and the ensuing hash war that brought the entire crypto market down. Bitmain was part of the Bitcoin ABC group and used all its hash rate to mine the ABC version of the chain.
What are your thoughts on this index being launched by the mining giant? Let us know in the comments below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock and the New York Times.