The rapidly evolving digital asset landscape has fueled the need by institutional investors for a system much like ones used in traditional finance but uniquely crafted for the complexities of crypto and with the quality that institutional clients require.
DATS is an institutional standard for the digital asset landscape. As a comprehensive universal classification system designed for the most rapidly evolving financial asset class, DATS is trusted by leading institutions as the framework for digital asset solutions.
Designed from the bottom up to capture the nuances of the digital landscape, DATS empowers institutions to perform sector-based performance attribution, assess sector themes and construct custom portfolios.
Aimed at helping institutional investors navigate digital assets alongside traditional assets, DATS routinely classifies the top 1,000 digital assets by market capitalization at the end of each quarter. With the broadest coverage, DATS is a comprehensive taxonomy that classifies assets into three resolution tiers: Two Supersectors, 10 Sectors and 42 Subsectors based on use case and underlying technology, as well as themes that go across subsectors. The subsectors and sectors clarify an asset's use case, while themes help identify whether an asset is part of a broader movement or feature set. Sector indices are based on classifications.
The Origin of DATS
In 2017 during the initial Coin Offering (ICO) boom, the number of digital assets went from dozens to thousands seemingly overnight. The rapid proliferation of digital assets meant that new ones were being launched daily. This made it difficult for institutional investors to gain access to a broad view of the industry.
At that point, Digital Asset Research (DAR) built an initial taxonomy system to help institutional investors assess this new fragmented asset class. The goal was to help institutional investors filter data by developing a system much like the ones used in traditional finance but uniquely crafted for the complexities of crypto and with the quality that institutional clients require.
The Need for a
Digital Asset Taxonomy
DATS was designed from the bottom up to capture the nuances of the digital landscape. This is in contrast to a more academic top-down approach which takes into account future use cases. In the building of DATS, DAR concentrated on giving digital asset investment managers the most practical application by first focusing on the asset - then moving up to the sector level.
The result is a comprehensive taxonomy that classifies assets into three resolution tiers: Two Supersectors, 10 Sectors and 42 Subsectors based on use case and underlying technology, as well as themes that go across subsectors. The subsectors and sectors clarify an asset’s use case, while themes help identify whether an asset is part of a broader movement or feature set. Sector indices are based on classifications for performance attribution, risk, and exposure tracking.
DATS is based on five years of experience taxonomizing assets and is singularly focused on the needs of institutional investors. No other taxonomy has that deep of an understanding of the crypto space or is of similar quality.
Doug Schwenk, CEO DAR
