Crypto investors are increasingly seeking exposure beyond bitcoin and ether as the digital-asset market matures, with the total cryptocurrency market capitalization standing at approximately $2.5 trillion according to TradingView data.
Bitcoin has emerged as the primary store-of-value asset in crypto, while ether remains closely tied to smart contracts and decentralized applications. Yet both together account for roughly 60% of the market by dominance, meaning portfolios concentrated in the two largest assets may miss gains when leadership rotates to smaller cryptocurrencies during broader market phases.
The CoinDesk 20 Index was designed to address that concentration. It is a rules-based index tracking the 20 largest and most liquid cryptocurrencies, excluding memecoins and stablecoins, with quarterly reconstitution. The index applies a 30% cap on its largest constituent and a 20% cap on all others—a methodology that limits dominance by bitcoin and ether compared to a standard market-cap-weighted approach.
Without those caps, the index would largely mirror bitcoin and ether performance alone. The modified weighting allows other major cryptocurrencies to play a larger role while still maintaining significant positions in the two largest assets.
Glenn Williams Jr., a crypto markets analyst at ProShares, noted that building comparable exposure directly would require purchasing, custodying and periodically rebalancing a large number of individual tokens, each potentially involving different exchanges, wallets and custody arrangements. An index-based approach simplifies that operational complexity.
Institutional interest in broadening crypto exposure appears to be growing. An EY-Parthenon and Coinbase survey conducted in 2026 found that 73% of more than 350 institutional investors surveyed planned to increase their crypto allocations that year, and 74% expected crypto prices to rise over the following 12 months. The survey also showed regulated products have become the default entry point: 66% of respondents already held spot crypto ETFs and ETPs, and 81% said they preferred accessing crypto through a registered vehicle.
Kim Klemballa of CoinDesk Data & Indices said multiple multi-asset benchmarks now exist. In addition to the CoinDesk 20, which underlies 20 investment vehicles globally including the ProShares CoinDesk 20 Crypto ETF (KRYP) and the WisdomTree Physical CoinDesk 20 ETP (WCRP), the firm offers the CoinDesk 5 Index for the five largest constituents, the CoinDesk 80 and CoinDesk 100, and hundreds of BMR-compliant indices. The Grayscale CoinDesk Crypto 5 ETF (GDLC) is the first U.S. multi-crypto ETP.
On the regulatory front, the CLARITY Act failed to advance in the Senate after falling short of the 60 votes required to move forward. In Canada, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions declared that tokenized deposits follow the same rules as traditional deposits. Meanwhile, the UK House of Lords passed an amendment requiring HM Treasury to publish a national digital-asset strategy within 12 months covering crypto, stablecoins and tokenized securities.
