India’s CoinSwitch Exchange Rolls Out Rupee-based Altcoin Index
A16z-backed Indian crypto exchange launches the first rupee-based crypto benchmark index, which lists eight of the top assets by market cap
Gateway of India, Mumbai; Source: Shutterstock
key takeaways
- The CRE8 index measures the performance of the Indian crypto market in rupees, rather than US dollars
- Dollar-denominated crypto indexes aren’t accurate representations for Indian investors, CoinSwitch’s CEO said
Indian cryptocurrency exchange CoinSwitch on Thursday launched the country’s maiden benchmark altcoin index to track the performance of the rupee-based crypto market.
Based on real-time transactions on the CoinSwitch app, CRE8 — the Crypto Rupee Index — tracks eight of the most highly-traded cryptocurrencies in the Indian market: bitcoin, ether, BNB, XRP, cardano, solana, polkadot and dogecoin.
“The index addresses a gap in the market. Until now, Indian users had to rely on international [indexes] denominated mostly in US dollars to assess the market,” Ashish Singhal, co-founder and CEO of CoinSwitch, told Blockworks.
“These [dollar indexes], however, do not provide a true picture of the Indian market as they do not take into account the demand and supply specific to the Indian rupee-based market, nor the INR exchange rate.”
The index represents the total market value of all cryptoassets traded in the Indian market relative to a base date of October 1, 2020, and a base value of 1,000 Indian rupees ($12.90), rather than in US dollars. Data will be refreshed 1,400 times a day to ensure the latest updates for observers and will be amended to include new constituents each quarter.
The CRE8 index was last up 0.88% at press time, but is down 44% in the past 12 months.
In the US, investors can track various similar benchmarks, such as the S&P Cryptocurrency Index and the Nasdaq Crypto Index. Digital-asset investing firm CoinShares also maintains several indexes that track cryptoassets, designed to suit investors with distinct exposures.
Valued at nearly $2 billion, CoinSwitch is a prominent crypto exchange in India that is backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital. It has 18 million registered users, according to company-provided figures.
Trading volumes in India plummeted as much as 60% in April after the government imposed a 30% tax on crypto earnings, which some criticized as a drastic move that crushes the digital asset economy of the country.
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