Nasdaq's New Institutional Product for Digital Assets Is Crucial to the Crypto Market

On Sept. 11, Coindesk reported that Nasdaq, the world's second-largest stock market, has been preparing crypto price analytics tools for institutional investors to facilitate increasing interest toward the market.

If Nasdaq formally pursues its plans to add cryptocurrencies to its Analytics Hub-a platform that leverages machine learning to evaluate data garnered from a variety of sources, including social media, to predict market movement-it will provide institutions with reliable market data.

"We have been engaged with CryptoCompare since their involvement in our blockchain hackathon in September 2016, and continue to be very impressed by their approach to coverage of these challenging markets. This partnership puts pricing data for this emerging market alongside other asset classes, giving our customers a more comprehensive tradingview in Eikon."

The entrance of institutional investors into the cryptocurrency sector is expected to stabilize the market and the major cryptocurrencies within it, according to SFOX head of growth Danny Kim.

This week, Citigroup disclosed its intent to operate a crypto custodian solution through digital asset receipts to assist large-scale investors in securely investing in the market with protection and insurance.

As crypto custodian solutions gain trust from investors in the financial market and major banks solidify their plans to commit to the market, the asset class will see a level of stability not previously seen.

The last barrier between institutions and the crypto market is that custody has been eliminated in the past few months.

Without dependable market data and analytics tools-and given the criticism against existing data providers such as CoinMarketCap-it will be difficult for institutions to track the market.

Nasdaq has not released its cryptocurrency market data platform and major banks have not fully committed to the market just yet.

The moment these strictly regulated financial firms commit to the cryptocurrency market, analysts expect the market to see an influx of institutional demand that will ultimately stabilize the market, allowing digital assets to emerge as a major asset class.