S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index Excludes Bitcoin and XRP

The S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index has been launched, and it has left out two of the biggest assets in the crypto sector: Bitcoin (BTC) and XRP. The index ranks blockchains by protocol revenue, which is the fees that networks incur for use.

Bitcoin's transaction fees flow to its miners rather than to holders, so it clears other eligibility bars but fails the revenue test outright. XRP, on the other hand, had chain revenue of $2.3 million in 2025, but it wasn't enough to make it into the limited number of spots in the index.

Ripple's issuer has spent years selling the XRP Ledger (XRPL) as plumbing for a variety of purposes in the financial industry, so being passed over by an index that's built to reward platforms that are in demand is somewhat significant. The main risk here is that XRP could lose out in the future if it doesn't meet the qualification criteria.

For now, no fund tracks the index yet, but this could change in the future when asset managers wrap it into a crypto ETF. If this happens, there would be capital inflows that would reach the 18 constituents and potentially skip XRP.