Coinbase recently announced their index fund, the announcement post on their blogpost can be found here.
This is huge news for adoption of cryptocurrencies in general as coinbase is one of the leading exchanges in the U.S.
Investors will be able to buy all listed currencies on the exchange through the fund, which consist of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin depending on their market cap. The current allocation is Bitcoin 62%, Ethereum 27%, Bitcoin Cash 7% and Litecoin at 4%. The allocation will reset once every year on January 1st.
At the same time they introduced Coinbase Index as well which is a measure of the financial performance of all assets that are listed on GDAX. Here is a chart of the Coinbase Index:
Bear in mind that there is a $10,000 minimum investment for the index fund and 2% will be charged annually as a management fee but without a performance fee which usually is rare for investment funds.
Investments for the Index fund are only possible for US-based accredited investors.
Coinbase doesn't plan on stopping here with the different currencies that are added to the fund and in the near future it will not only rely on the currencies that their exchange GDAX has listed or will list.
If you want to read more on the criteria of assets to be listed on GDAX you can find that information here.
They also released a Construction and Methodology document on the index which can be found here.
I am personally very excited for this as bigger investors might not be interested in investing in assets one by one and having to make sure to keep them safe in cold storage themselves hence trusting coinbase with it. This could lead to a lot of new players entering the space and it could mean new heights for blockchain technology and evaluation this year.
Of course if you know how to keep your coins safe, they are the safest if only you hold the private keys to them. :)
