Bletchley Indexes is fast becoming the go-to platform for asset managers, investors, and traders to find accurate benchmarks on the financial performance of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. Their multiple indexes help to narrow the gap between the crypto community and professional investors by providing independent, up-to-date, high-quality market information which minimizes the execution costs of tracking funds.
Powered by Nomics’ Cryptocurrency Market Data API, Bletchley Indexes is unique in its straightforward and unbiased methodology. We talk to Mike, Bletchley’s Co-founder, to find out how he is leading the fight against ill-defined global metrics in the crypto space.
What was your background before starting the Bletchley Indexes?
I work at a trading firm in Chicago and have spent the majority of my career on options market making desks for fixed income products. My co-founder and CTO, Steve, works at an exchange in Chicago as a software engineer.
What’s the Bletchley origin story?
In early 2017, as more coins became relevant, I found myself continually wishing that I could simply look at an index instead of scrolling through CoinMarketCap.com to figure out how the market was moving.
I had also read about the first go around of altcoins from 2013 and the corresponding data analysis around returns of coins other than Bitcoin. There was a lot of conjecture and no robust data to precisely track how simple strategies performed. I wanted to make sure that the industry wouldn’t have that problem again.
From my day job, I was extremely familiar with best practices in the traditional financial industry around index construction, methodologies, and rebalancing. I thought there was a valuable tool the community was missing; I had the expertise to provide it, and I wanted to do my part to contribute to the growth of the industry. Subsequently, I reached out to my co-founder, and we began working in March of 2017.
What do the Bletchley Indexes do and what problems do they solve?
We provide benchmarks for the financial performance of digital assets. Our eight unique indexes with USD and BTC denominated pricing are tools to help decipher the story of market dynamics. Instead of looking at the individual returns of tens or hundreds of assets, differences in one or two indexes are often sufficient to explain what is driving the market. Referring to indexes instead of ill-defined global metrics also provides a more accurate picture of replicable returns.
Bletchley provides light standard analysis around our indexes and the market, along with APIs to connect with data providers and investors. We also publish data allowing for easy replication of all of our indexes.
When it comes to crypto market data APIs, what problems did you need to solve?
Our biggest concern is around reliable pricing, both in terms of API feed stability as well as the quality of the price calculation to prevent unwarranted extreme values. The secondary consideration is the quality of historical data which assists in assessing performance against other market strategies and provides index metrics to our users.
What were you using before Nomics?
For the last year, we used CryptoCompare.
Why did you decide to switch?
We discovered Nomics!
What other options did you consider?
We previously used CoinCap.io, CoinMarketCap.com, and CryptoCompare.com. However, erratic pricing, ticker changes without warning, and downtime on APIs kept us searching for a better solution.
Why did you ultimately decide to use Nomics?
The reliability and richness of live and historical datasets as well as responsive communication from Nomics via their Telegram groups.
How are you using the Nomics API?
We are using the API to calculate the price for every asset in our indexes. This is the single most critical function in our product offering as it directly drives our index pricing. Obviously, during monthly rebalances speed is important, and not having to iterate through each asset allows us to be more precise in our pricing. We also use the Nomics API to retrieve individual asset prices for the benchmarks and performance data in our monthly reports.
What has been your experience with using Nomics?
Getting started using the API was a breeze with the extensive documentation available. Despite limited coding knowledge, I was able to successfully pull and reshape everything I needed in under an hour. Convenient endpoints allowed me to significantly increase the efficiency of my programs and I was able to pull data directly from Nomics instead of looping through coins and calculations as I had done previously.
Would you recommend the Nomics API to others?
Absolutely. I’ve found the documentation to be wonderful given my limited technical knowledge. The unique endpoints make it easy to find exactly what you are looking for and without any hassle.
How can readers learn more about what you’re doing or follow-up with further queries?
Our website bletchleyindexes.com has a wealth of information and multiple contact options. The quickest response will usually happen via Twitter DMs (@BletchleyIndex) or our Telegram chat.
Want To Share Your Nomics API Case Study With Us?
Are you doing exciting things with the Nomics API that you think the world should know about? Then we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us via our contact form to let us know what you’re working on and why it would make a great case study for our blog.
If your case study is relevant to our audience, we’ll share in on the blog. And if our jaw hits the floor after reading your case study, we’ll share it on Twitter, our Telegram Group, and maybe even publish a Press Release or invite you to our podcast to talk about it.
