Crypto Financialization
Crypto as listed equity beta: exchanges and brokers monetizing volume, stablecoin float income under the GENIUS Act framework, corporate token treasuries, and miners whose power portfolios double as AI-datacenter optionality. The sector's cash flows are increasingly regulated and real, but the basket still trades as high-beta bitcoin in equity wrappers — which is the point: it is the cleanest read on speculative appetite in the tape.
Performance
Follow the theme against the wider market.
Series before each basket's creation date are a backtest of the membership as of creation; live tracking starts at creation.
| Return | 1 day | 5 days | 20 days | 60 days | MTD | YTD | 1 year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basket | -0.6% | +10.6% | +16.3% | +10.2% | +7.8% | +28.9% | +22.4% |
| vs FW 3000 | -0.3% | +10.3% | +16.7% | +3.6% | +7.2% | +13.7% | +2.8% |
Inside the basket · 16 stocks
Current members and the reasoning behind each inclusion. Returns are for individual stocks.
| Why it’s included | Added | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CRCL | Stablecoin pure play: USDC float income at scale (Circle) | -1.1% | +17.1% | +53.1% | +28.7% | 2026-07-21 |
| MSTR | The archetype bitcoin treasury — leveraged BTC per share (Strategy) | -1.4% | +12.2% | +42.8% | -6.0% | 2026-07-21 |
| BMNR | The ether treasury analogue (Bitmine) | -5.6% | +4.9% | +32.7% | -8.0% | 2026-07-21 |
| HOOD | Retail flow aggregator — crypto is the margin driver, plus tokenization and prediction-market optionality | -2.1% | +17.1% | +30.9% | +8.0% | 2026-07-21 |
| GLXY | Institutional crypto merchant bank plus the Helios AI-datacenter conversion (Galaxy) | -0.6% | +13.4% | +30.5% | +17.8% | 2026-07-21 |
| COIN | The regulated exchange: spot, derivatives, USDC economics and custody for the ETF complex | -4.2% | +3.3% | +20.2% | -18.4% | 2026-07-21 |
| GEMI | Exchange and custody challenger (Gemini) | -3.3% | +8.8% | +14.4% | -52.8% | 2026-07-21 |
| MARA | Largest listed miner: HODL balance sheet plus a grid-services power book | -2.5% | +6.0% | +12.1% | +25.9% | 2026-07-21 |
| RIOT | Mining scale with AI/HPC conversion optionality at Corsicana | +3.1% | +14.8% | +6.2% | +72.1% | 2026-07-21 |
| HUT | Power-first miner with the American Bitcoin stake (Hut 8) | +6.2% | +17.8% | +5.6% | +103.6% | 2026-07-21 |
| XYZ | Corporate bitcoin holder plus Cash App bitcoin rails and Proto mining hardware (Block) | -0.7% | -1.0% | +4.8% | +27.1% | 2026-07-21 |
| CIFR | Mining plus HPC hosting contracts (Cipher) | +2.1% | +16.9% | +3.3% | +20.2% | 2026-07-21 |
| CLSK | Efficiency-focused pure miner (CleanSpark) | +0.9% | +8.8% | +3.2% | +25.4% | 2026-07-21 |
| WULF | Zero-carbon mining and HPC hosting (TeraWulf) | +1.7% | +7.6% | -3.3% | +43.7% | 2026-07-21 |
| PYPL | PYUSD stablecoin and crypto on/off-ramps across a two-sided network — the diluted leg | -3.0% | +2.7% | -6.7% | -5.0% | 2026-07-21 |
| CORZ | Miner turned AI-datacenter landlord — shareholders chose independence over the CoreWeave takeout (Core Scientific) | -0.1% | +8.4% | -14.9% | +22.9% | 2026-07-21 |
Partial price histories: BMNR from 2018-12-06, CIFR from 2020-10-20, COIN from 2021-04-14, CORZ from 2024-01-24, CRCL from 2025-06-04, GEMI from 2025-09-12, HOOD from 2021-07-29.
How this basket is built
Equal-weighted, monthly-rebalanced, buy-and-hold between rebalances; dated membership changes take effect same-day.
Tracked since 2026-07-21. Membership decisions are documented below.
Read the methodology →Reading the returns
Basket returns include dividends. “vs FW 3000” compares the basket’s compounded growth with the benchmark’s. Green means positive; red means negative.
Cross-checked against BITQ. Daily return correlation: 0.94 across 1335 sessions. the pure-play crypto-equity index; holds many of the same names plus foreign-listed miners (IREN, BTDR) outside our US-only universes
Membership history & changes
- create
Initial composition: 16 names — exchanges/brokers (COIN, HOOD), diluted S&P payment rails with real crypto books (XYZ, PYPL), stablecoins (CRCL), merchant banking (GLXY, GEMI), token treasuries (MSTR, BMNR), and the miner complex with its AI-conversion optionality (MARA, RIOT, CLSK, CORZ, CIFR, WULF, HUT). Reference pinned to BITQ. Considered and excluded: IREN, BTDR and BLSH (foreign-domiciled, outside the FW 3000), APLD (now an AI-datacenter landlord, no longer a crypto business), SBET and BTBT (sub-scale ether treasuries — BMNR carries that leg), CME (crypto futures are a small slice of a rates/equities franchise; it stays in capital-markets), and BLK/BK (ETF issuance and custody economics too diluted to read).