CoinSwitch, an India-based crypto exchange, launched a maiden benchmark altcoin index to track the performance of the rupee-based crypto market. The Crypto Rupee Index is based on real-time transactions on the CoinSwitch app – CRE8. It tracks eight of the most highly-traded cryptocurrencies in the Indian market – Bitcoin, Ether, BNB, Ripple’s XRP, Cardano, Solana, Polkadot, and Dogecoin.
Ashish Singhal, the co-founder and CEO of CoinSwitch, says the index addresses a gap in the market. Indian users have had to rely on international indexes until now, denominated mostly in US dollars to assess the market. Singhal explained that the dollar indexes do not provide a true picture of the Indian market as they do not take into account the demand and supply specific to the Indian rupee-based market, nor the INR exchange rate.
Investors in the US can track various similar benchmarks like the Nasdaq Crypto Index and S&P Cryptocurrency Index. CoinShares, a digital-asset investing firm, maintains several indexes that track crypto-assets designed to suit investors with distinct exposures. It is a prominent crypto exchange in India that is backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Tiger Global, Coinbase Ventures, and Sequoia Capital.
CoinSwitch’s latest service comes despite a slump in trading volumes on India’s major crypto exchanges to their lowest in years after new taxes kicked in on April 1. India’s crypto industry has been limited because of the central bank’s pressure on banks and financial institutions.
