Coin Metrics acquires digital asset firm Bletchley Indexes

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On June 7, Coin Metrics announced that they had acquired digital asset index firm Bletchley Indexes. This acquisition is part of a move by the cryptocurrency analytics company to launch its own smart beta index.

In their announcement, Coin Metrics hailed the move as a key to meeting their mission “to provide transparent and actionable crypto asset market and network (on-chain) data.” They added that these indexes “can promote transparency by providing an overall assessment of the performance of the crypto market and products built on indexes provide investors with an avenue to crypto asset exposure.”

The plan looks to marry their crypto metrics with the index funds of Bletchley to create a mix that will provide both passive and active strategies. This kind of information is quickly becoming popular with crypto fund providers.

The two strategies to invest in the market have gained their supporters. Warren Buffett, for example, is a champion of passive investing, where the aim is to get a broad exposure across the market. Meanwhile, there are those who are advocates of the active investing models, where individual stocks are chosen, looking for a big return.

Smart beta investing is the strategy of combining both. The aim is to obtain low risk or to increase diversification at a lower cost, what is referred to as an alpha investment. This reduces costs and the risks that are associated with traditional active management.

By acquiring Bletchley, Coin Metrics is able to provide the best of both worlds. Many are believing that the markets are moving from active to passive, but now the crypto analytics company will be able to provide both strategies to consumers and clients. This, according to Coin Metrics, is one of the primary reasons why they saw the addition of the digital asset index firm to be a necessary one.

“To accelerate our efforts in this area, Coin Metrics acquired the intellectual property of Bletchley Indexes. The Bletchley Indexes founders will remain as advisors to Coin Metrics. Not only is the Bletchley team experienced, they also share Coin Metrics’ vision for the future of crypto as an asset class and our values, namely producing independent data products of the highest quality,” the company explained in their release.

The combination of the two companies will now be referred to as Coin Metrics Bletchley Indexes (CMBI). The new name is not the only change that is expected. CMBI will be using Coin Metrics’ market and on-chain data, which will help it to expand beyond the 13 indexes of Bletchley. This will include smart beta indexes.