Goldman Sachs creates digital asset taxonomy system for subscribing investors

The financial services giant, along with Coin Metrics and MSCI, will help investors track market movements and screen hundreds of coins and tokens by their uses.

Goldman Sachs, MSCI, and Coin Metrics announced Nov. 3 that they have devised a digital assets classification system to increase the transparency of market movements and help market participants analyze the digital assets ecosystem. The new system is called datonomy and is available by subscription from the three companies. 

The new taxonomy divides digital assets world into classes, sectors and subsectors according to their use to make it possible to view those assets in a more granular way, a Goldman Sachs spokesperson told CNBC. The system is intended to provide a consistent view of the market, screen assets using different filters and help market participants “understand aggregated properties of these assets at the portfolio level,” according to a statement.

We are thrilled to introduce datonomyᵀᴹ – a new classification system of digital assets made possible through the strategic collaboration of Coin Metrics, Goldman Sachs and MSCI.

This new taxonomy is offered as a data service by Coin Metrics, Goldman Sachs and MSCI. pic.twitter.com/CDtVcYDaU1

— CoinMetrics.io (@coinmetrics) November 3, 2022

Coin Metrics CEO Tim Rice said in the statement, “This collaboration represents a significant leap forward for the industry as a whole, establishing a coherent and future-proof structure to monitor and analyze the digital assets ecosystem.” Coin Metrics provides crypto reporting and analytical software.

MSCI, a provider of critical decision support tools for investors, is the owner and sole administrator of the system. MSCI announced in a separate statement that it has launched a series of new indexes using datonomy in collaboration with Menai Financial Group and Compass Financial Technologies.

Swiss-based Compass is the publisher of the “Compass Crypto Basket Fundamental DeFi Index” and other crypto indexes. It created single-digital-asset indexes based on MSCI’s new indexes.

Related: Altcoin Roundup: Crypto indexes offer broad access, but are they profitable in the long run?

The new MSCI indexes will chart top-20 and top-30 digital assets by market cap, assets that do not rely on proof-of-work consensus and assets “associated with technology platforms supporting ‘Smart Contracts’ features.” The indexes are the first of their kind for MSCI.