S&P Digital Markets 50 Index Will Gain Blockchain Verifiability Via Chainlink

Tokenized equity provider Dinari is collaborating with Chainlink to bring a new blockchain focused equities index on-chain, the firm announced on Wednesday. 

The S&P Digital Markets 50 Index built by Dinari with the help of index provider S&P Dow Jones Indices—the maintainer of the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones indices—is expected to start before the end of the year. 

“By powering the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index, Chainlink is enabling one of the first indexes to operate on-chain with verifiable, real-time index data that spans both traditional and digital assets,” Chainlink’s Capital Markets President Fernando Vazquez said in a statement. 

The index is built with 35 U.S. listed firms that have connections to blockchain and 15 major digital assets. However, an official list of assets has not been published yet, and a representative for the firms did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment. 

After the index is created, Dinari will tokenize it using its tokenized equities platform, dShares, ensuring that every asset inside the index is tokenized in a 1:1 ratio, with shares held with a regulated custodian.  

Chainlink’s network will then provide real-time pricing and performance data, creating a transparent on-chain benchmark to match the off-chain index. 

“Financial systems depend on trusted data and transparent infrastructure,” Dinari co-founder and CEO Gabe Otte said. 

“Working with S&P Dow Jones Indices and Chainlink allows us to bring that same standard of reliability to tokenized benchmarks, ensuring the S&P Digital Markets 50 operates with integrity and verifiability on-chain.”

Tokenizing equities has been a key theme this year, furthering the entanglement of traditional financial systems and crypto. 

This summer, tokenization firm Backed introduced its xStocks feature allowing users to trade shares in firms like Tesla and Apple directly on-chain and via popular centralized crypto exchanges. 

Additionally, Robinhood  unveiled its own tokenized equities offering for European users in June as Coinbase continues to eye a similar product start-up. 

On Monday, index provider FTSE Russell announced it would use Chainlink to publish its market index data on blockchain networks. The decentralized oracle network joined with the U.S. Department of Commerce to integrate macroeconomic data to blockchains as well.