Reality Shares and Nasdaq have launched the Reality Shares Nasdaq Blockchain Economy Index, a smart beta index tracking the development of global companies creating and implementing blockchain solutions.
Blockchain technology functions as a secure and unalterable digital ledger of peer-to-peer transactions that is transparent to all and not reliant on a third party for management.
The Reality Shares Nasdaq Blockchain Economy Index is designed to measure the returns of global companies that are committing resources to developing, researching, supporting, innovating or utilizing blockchain technology for their proprietary use or for use by others.
Reality Shares, known as a specialist provider of smart beta dividend ETFs, utilized internal and external research, as well as their proprietary Blockchain Score ranking system, to compile the index.
The index methodology identifies firms involved with developing and implementing trusted transaction solutions based on a peer-to-peer distributed network. For example, this includes companies looking to streamline the distribution and verification of cross-border payments, more efficiently store and secure cloud-based digital data, facilitate trusted transactions based on data security and privacy, or mitigate risk in supply chain management, among other uses.
The largest sector exposure of the index is to information technology, accounting for almost 60% of the total weight. The next largest sector exposures are financials (29%) and consumer discretionary (8%).
According to Eric Ervin, CEO of Reality Shares, the firm partnered with Nasdaq because of the exchange’s established interest and experience in blockchain technology. “Reality Shares recognized the tremendous growth potential of blockchain technology, and subsequently teamed up with Nasdaq to identify what we believe to be the leading global companies deploying resources to develop blockchain applications. As these new applications are deployed, we believe these companies will most likely become disrupters in their industries, with potential to profit at the expense of laggard companies that do not deploy blockchain applications.”
“The collaboration between Nasdaq and Reality Shares represents a tangible way to track the growth of an industry that may revolutionize the way commerce is conducted, and yet is still in its infancy,” added Fredrik Voss, vice president of blockchain innovation at Nasdaq.
An ETF that will track the index is already in the works, with Reality Shares submitting initial regulatory papers on 2 November 2017.