S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) and Pantera Capital, a digital asset investment firm, introduced a digital asset benchmark on 21 Jul that screens constituents on protocol revenue, applying "the same standards in trusted benchmarks like the S&P 500," S&P DJI CEO Cathy Clay said in a statement.
New S&P Index Selects Digital Assets by Protocol Revenue, Not Size Rank
22 July 2026 - 07:51 CEST
By Oihyun Kim
The S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index has 18 constituents, and the five largest are Ether (ETH), BNB, Solana (SOL), Tron (TRX) and Hyperliquid (HYPE), according to S&P DJI's index brochure.
Bitcoin (BTC) is not among them. Clay told CNBC the same day, "Bitcoin is not in there because it's really not one of those revenue-generating protocols."
Artemis, a blockchain analytics firm, supplies the protocol revenue data that drives selection, while pricing, market capitalization and liquidity data come from data provider Lukka, according to the index methodology.
Why revenue, not size
Clay named revenue generation and liquidity among the inclusion criteria, along with a seasoning period and a listing requirement that sit in the rules of the parent index. She said the index screens on fees people pay to use a protocol, not returns paid out to token holders.
The release says the index covers tokens and companies with demonstrated usage and actual revenue. S&P DJI has disclosed only the five largest constituents, all of them tokens.
Revenue decides selection, but not weight. The index rebalances quarterly, Clay said, and weights constituents by adjusted market capitalization, which counts only the tokens in circulation and leaves out those still locked up or held in reserve. The largest constituent is capped at 35% and no other constituent may exceed 20%, according to the index brochure.
Where index money goes
A benchmark of this kind sets a reference against which fund managers measure performance. It can also serve as the underlying reference for investment products. The S&P 500 is the familiar example. Funds that track it hold the companies in the index, so when S&P DJI adds or drops one, those funds buy or sell it. Inclusion therefore determines where index-tracking capital flows.
S&P DJI has run the S&P Bitcoin Index since May 2021 and covers the asset in its S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Asset Index. That benchmark, along with rival crypto indexes such as the Nasdaq CME Crypto Index and the CoinDesk 20, screens constituents on market capitalization and liquidity.
The release positions the new index against existing crypto benchmarks built around price momentum or popular tokens, naming meme coins and Bitcoin.
