Nasdaq and CME Group are responding to that demand by deepening their long-standing partnership and reintroducing the Nasdaq Crypto™ Index (NCI™) as the Nasdaq CME Crypto™ Index (NCI™) — establishing a leading index designed for today’s investor looking to gain digital asset exposure.

The announcement brings together two of the world’s most trusted market infrastructure providers at a pivotal moment for the digital asset ecosystem, as renewed investor confidence and clearer regulatory frameworks accelerate institutional participation.

“This is not just a name change,” said Giovanni Vicioso, Executive Director of Equity and Alternative Products at CME Group. “It is the combination of two gold standards to deliver the regulated diversification and foundational building block the market now demands.”

According to Sean Wasserman, CFA, Head of Index Product Management at Nasdaq, the timing of the announcement reflects a broader shift in how investors are approaching digital assets.

“Now that we are starting to see regulatory clarity coming to the treatment of crypto assets, particularly in the U.S., the door has been opened for industry participants to bring to the crypto asset class the types of regulated investment solutions that investors rely on every day,” Wasserman said.

While early crypto investing centered largely on single-asset exposure, Wasserman said the market is evolving toward index-based strategies.

“We see the index-based approach as the direction investors are heading, beyond just bitcoin,” he said. “That’s similar to what we’ve seen in other asset classes, where you have indexes that are representative of the broader market.”

Wasserman and Vicioso both noted that the deepening partnership reflects a shared commitment by Nasdaq and CME Group to establish a common benchmark supportive of an ecosystem that can serve as a foundation for long-term growth in digital assets.

Enabling the Next Phase of Product Innovation

The Nasdaq CME Crypto^TM Index (NCI^TM) is designed to serve as a foundational benchmark for a growing range of regulated financial products, including ETFs, structured products, and actively managed funds.

While much of that ecosystem is still being built, Wasserman explained that the index will lay the groundwork for more sophisticated portfolio construction — enabling risk management, capital efficiency, and diversification strategies that are commonplace in equities.

CME Group brings deep experience in regulated derivatives to that effort. Since launching the first CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate in 2016 and one of the first regulated B itcoin futures contracts in 2017, it has become a leading venue for institutional crypto participation.

“Our crypto derivatives are what provide the broader ecosystem with a regulated and liquid market for price discovery,” Vicioso said.

A Benchmark with Global Reach

Launched in 2021, the index is part of an ecosystem of Nasdaq digital asset indexes that have been licensed for products with crypto native asset manager Hashdex across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America, supporting more than $1 billion in assets today, including the first multi crypto asset index tracking ETF in the US, the Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF (ticker: NCIQ). Both Nasdaq and CME Group expect the footprint of investor and issuer adoption to expand as demand for regulated crypto exposure continues to grow.

Looking ahead, Nasdaq’s Wasserman projected that crypto may be increasingly included in portfolios as a modest but meaningful allocation.

“We’re really talking about establishing it as an asset class,” he said. “Even a one to five percent allocation as part of a wider portfolio mix is a huge opportunity from an adoption standpoint.”

For Vicioso, a broader goal is to shape the future of how digital assets are accessed and managed.

“The Nasdaq CME Crypto^TM Index (NCI^TM) is purpose-built for the future of finance,” he said. “The index is not just tracking crypto — it’s shaping how global investors build diversified portfolios.”

Source: Nasdaq