Payments & Fintech
Consumer and B2B transaction volume as an asset class: networks, processors, issuers, and the crypto on-ramp. Networks are the quality core; processors and PYPL carry the disruption discount.
+3.9% 20d vs S&P 500
Financials Thematic basket
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.
1 day+1.8%basket return
20 days-4.0%basket return
20 days vs S&P 500-4.7%relative return
Year to date+0.6%basket return
Performance
Follow the theme against the wider market.
Crypto FinancializationS&P 500
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 | +1.8% | +2.1% | -4.0% | +3.5% | +0.2% | +0.6% | -20.1% |
| vs S&P 500 | +1.2% | +1.6% | -4.7% | -1.1% | -1.3% | -11.5% | -31.0% |
Risk statistics
Period
1y · 2025-10-21 – 2026-10-21 · 252 / 252 sessions
Sharpe ratio-0.26Annualized · 0% risk-free rate
Sortino ratio-0.36Annualized · 0% downside target
Historical volatility46.1%Annualized · daily log returns
Basket total returns · Annualized using 252 trading sessions · 0% risk-free rate and downside target. As of 2026-10-21 · close.
How these statistics are calculated
Risk methodology
Sharpe: average daily simple return divided by its sample standard deviation, multiplied by √252. The risk-free rate is assumed to be 0%; this is not a cash-adjusted ratio.
Sortino: average daily simple return divided by downside deviation, multiplied by √252. Downside deviation is the square root of the average squared shortfall below 0%, counting all sessions, including zeros for gains.
Historical volatility: √(252 × average squared daily log return), matching the Vol page’s realized-volatility convention. This differs from the sample standard deviation used in Sharpe.
Each period requires complete history and at least 5 sessions. MTD and YTD follow the calendar; 1y is 252 sessions. Missing data or an undefined ratio displays — with a reason. Short periods can produce unstable ratios; intraday snapshots include a partial session. History before this basket’s creation is backtested. If a new basket has no stored daily return series yet, estimates from its rounded published chart levels are marked ≈.
Inside the basket · 4 stocks
Current members and the reasoning behind each inclusion. Returns are for individual holdings.
| Why it’s included | Added | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PYPLPayPal | PYUSD stablecoin and crypto on/off-ramps across a two-sided network — the diluted leg | +0.1% | +2.0% | +8.9% | -1.2% | 2026-07-21 |
| XYZBlock, Inc. | Corporate bitcoin holder plus Cash App bitcoin rails and Proto mining hardware (Block) | +0.1% | +3.1% | +4.7% | +20.2% | 2026-07-21 |
| COINCoinbase Global | The regulated exchange: spot, derivatives, USDC economics and custody for the ETF complex | +3.6% | +2.4% | -10.6% | -21.7% | 2026-07-21 |
| HOODRobinhood Markets, Inc. | Retail flow aggregator — crypto is the margin driver, plus tokenization and prediction-market optionality | +3.8% | +0.8% | -16.9% | -9.9% | 2026-07-21 |
Partial price histories: COIN from 2021-04-14, HOOD from 2021-07-29.
How this basket is built
Equal-weighted; monthly rebalance, buy-and-hold between rebalances; dated membership changes reset the target weights.
Tracked since 2026-07-21. Membership decisions are documented below.
Read the methodology →Reading the returns
Basket returns include dividends. “vs S&P 500” compares the basket’s compounded growth with the benchmark’s. Green means positive; red means negative.
Cross-checked against BITQ. Daily return correlation: 0.78 across 1367 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
Membership history
- 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).