Japan gets its first crypto asset index for institutional investors

A crypto-investment quants company and the research arm of Japan's oldest brokerage firm, Nomura,  yesterday announced a crypto-asset benchmark for institutional investors in Japan. It tracks Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin and XRP in US dollars, and the companies involved say it’s the first of its kind in Japan.

The NRI/IU Crypto-Asset Index is a partnership between quants company Intelligence Unit, the Nomura Research Institute, and index provider MV Index Solutions. MVIS worked with crypto data company CryptoCompare to calculate the index.

Purpose built for Japanese investors, it uses exchanges and custody solutions best suited for the Japanese yen and the US dollar. All closing values are in Japanese standard time.

Akihiro Niimi, CEO of Intelligence Unit said that the index meets “strong demand” from institutional investors, who are “contributing to the growth of crypto-asset funds, and well-diversified products like index funds are attractive as alternative investments.”

The index uses New Year’s Eve 2015 as its base date. Since then, the value of the index would have increased by 6,468%. The all-time-high of the index reached $22,061, and the all time low was $91.92, according to data provided by MV Index Solutions.

Elsewhere in Asian markets, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange published a blockchain stock index last month. It comprises 50 stocks of all the biggest names in the industry who’ve dipped their toes in crypto, such as Ping An Bank and mining company Wholeasy.