Mid-Cap Alt-Coin Crypto Index

Purpose

The Synnax Mid-Cap Alt-Coin Crypto Index is designed to track the aggregate market capitalization of economically independent, non-pegged, non-derivative cryptoassets that sit between the largest incumbents and the long tail. It aims to capture the “mid-cap alt-coin” segment: projects with material adoption and liquidity, but without the structural distortions introduced by stablecoins, wrappers, staking receipts, RWAs, or synthetic instruments.

The index is fully rules-based, transparent, and recalculated every minute using CoinGecko as the sole data provider.

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1. Universe Definition

The starting universe consists of all tokens listed on CoinGecko.

Each token is classified using a deterministic classifier based on its economic design and function (not narrative, hype, or price action). Every token is assigned exactly one of the following categories:

• stablecoin — assets designed to maintain a stable value (fiat, commodity, or synthetic pegs)

• wrapped — tokenized representations of another asset

• pegged — non-stable assets explicitly designed to mirror another asset’s price

• rwa — tokens whose value is derived from real-world assets (treasuries, bonds, real estate, invoices, equities, gold)

• lst — liquid staking tokens or staking receipts (e.g., stETH, rETH)

• synthetic — derivatives, synthetics, mirrored assets, risk-engine tokens

• rebasing — elastic-supply tokens (AMPL-style)

• lp — LP shares, vault tokens, or index-like instruments (e.g., Curve LPs, DPI)

• none — economically independent cryptoassets

Only tokens classified as none are eligible for inclusion.

Category changes are hard: if a token is reclassified into a non-eligible category, it is immediately excluded from the index; vice-versa if a token get reclassified as none, it immediately is included in the index (modulo eligibility criteria).

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2. Eligibility Criteria

A token classified as none becomes eligible if:

1. Its CoinGecko market_cap is ≥ USD 50 million, and

2. It is not in the top 10 by market cap within the filtered universe (i.e., after excluding all non-none categories).

Both conditions must hold continuously.

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3. Sticky Membership Rules

Index membership is intentionally sticky to prevent churn and noise.

• Inclusion: A token must satisfy the eligibility criteria for 100% of all samples over a rolling 7-day window (7 × 24 × 60 minute samples, or all available samples within that window if historical resolution is coarser).

• Exclusion: A token is removed if it:

  • Falls below USD 50M market cap for the entire 7-day window, or

  • Enters the top 10 (within the filtered universe) for the entire 7-day window.

• Data staleness handling:

  • Market cap data may be up to 120 minutes stale without penalty.

  • If a token’s data is stale beyond 120 minutes, it is temporarily excluded from the index sum but not removed from membership.

  • If a token remains stale for a full 7-day window, it is excluded from the index.

This design ensures continuity while protecting the index from silent data decay.

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4. Index Calculation

The index value at time t is the pure sum of the market capitalizations of all current index members:

$\text{Index}(t) = \sum_{i \in \text{Members}(t)} \text{MarketCap}_i(t)$

• No normalization, weights, or divisor are applied.

• The index is recomputed every minute.

• All values are sourced from CoinGecko’s market_cap field.

The index therefore represents the total economic footprint of the mid-cap alt-coin segment at any point in time.

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5. Design Rationale

• Economic purity: By excluding stablecoins, wrappers, RWAs, LPs, synthetics, and staking receipts, the index reflects independent crypto networks, not accounting artifacts or financial overlays.

• Structural neutrality: The index is not price-weighted or supply-normalized; it reflects the real capital distribution in the segment.

• Noise resistance: Sticky membership prevents short-lived spikes, manipulations, or micro-caps from entering.

• Continuity: Temporary data outages do not cause abrupt membership churn.

• Transparency: Every rule is deterministic and auditable.

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6. API Access

Interested parties can get full access to the detailed index data via an API or through a one-time manual data export. If you would like to get access, please reach out to us at [email protected].