Grayscale Investments Partners with FTSE Russell to Launch Crypto Indexes Business

According to CoinDesk, U.S. crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments has partnered with FTSE Russell, the index division of London Stock Exchange parent LSE Group, to establish a new crypto indexes business. The companies unveiled five indexes that monitor the performance of various crypto sectors, including currencies, smart contract platforms, financials, consumer and culture, and utilities and services.Some indexes serve as the foundation for exchange-traded products like ETFs, and this collaboration comes as Grayscale aims to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into an ETF. CoinDesk Indices, a division of CoinDesk, provides the benchmarks for GBTC and the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), but the FTSE partnership does not involve this. Both Grayscale and CoinDesk are owned by Digital Currency Group.Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein stated that investors have shown increasing interest in diversifying beyond crypto's largest assets and look to Grayscale for a better understanding of this evolving asset class. The Grayscale Crypto Sectors initiative formalizes the company's specialized view of the crypto landscape. London-based FTSE Russell currently benchmarks around $20 trillion in assets, and its crypto indexes are constructed by Digital Asset Research, a New York-based provider of crypto data.