Kaiko Launches Crypto Benchmarks

Digital assets data provider Kaiko has launched what it says is the first suite of 50 Price Rates, a service providing benchmark rates to the digital assets community.

The firm says the new rates provide accurate, transparent, and reliable pricing information and can be used by institutional investors to accurately assess the value of their custodied or held assets. It adds it will be gradually expanding its benchmark rates family over the next few months, with new rates that will vary in terms of the exchange vetting process.

Price Rates assess transaction data from 100+ recognised, centralised exchanges, Kaiko says, adding that for each relevant crypto asset, an optimisation process selects the best combination of up to five centralised exchanges in terms of liquidity coverage to minimize the occurrences of 30-second periods without any trades.

Kaiko will further launch its standard rates offering belonging to the benchmark rates family, which filters the transaction data with significant Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) controls, amongst other criteria.

The third iteration of the Benchmark Rates Family to be launched will be the Reference Rates offering, which will further narrow pricing sources to only those with strong KYC and AML credentials, and that are regulated in their respective jurisdictions.

“Holistic, clean, and reliable pricing is immensely valuable to institutions and enterprises holding or trading digital assets,” says Alexandre Ruggeri, head of Kaiko indices. “Just as any institution with significant stores of traditional assets, such as gold, expects to value their holdings against a reliable price index rather than individual traders’ estimations, institutions holding digital assets require independent and accurate tools to assess their custody.

“Kaiko Rates is built on our market-leading data capabilities to provide this service,” he adds. “With large-name traditional finance institutions increasingly entering the digital asset space, there is no better time to launch Price Rates. In addition to the launch of Price Rates today, we look forward to adding Standard Rates and Reference Rates to our offering in due course.”