What happened? FTSE Russell published its major indices on-chain through Chainlink’s DataLink.
FTSE Russell is now putting benchmarks like the Russell 1000, Russell 2000, Russell 3000, FTSE 100, FX benchmarks and digital asset indices directly onto blockchains via Chainlink’s DataLink. The feeds will be available across 50+ public and private chains and to over 2,000 Chainlink-powered applications. This marks one of the first big moves to make regulated, traditional financial index data verifiably accessible on-chain.
Who does this affect? Traditional finance firms, DeFi builders, and investors all stand to gain new on-chain building blocks.
Asset managers, exchanges and other institutions that use FTSE Russell benchmarks can now build tokenized ETFs and indexed products with on-chain, auditable data. DeFi developers and protocols get trusted price and index feeds for pricing, risk models and automated strategies. That also opens the door for retail and institutional investors to access new tokenized financial products that mirror traditional markets.
Why does this matter? It could reshape markets by bringing trusted, regulated benchmarks into DeFi and enabling new tokenized financial products.
Having FTSE Russell data on-chain lowers a key trust barrier for institutional capital to participate in tokenized asset markets, which could increase demand for oracle services like Chainlink. More trusted data on-chain can boost liquidity and activity in tokenized ETFs, structured tokens and DeFi markets while creating new revenue streams for data providers. In the short term markets can be volatile — LINK even pulled back on the news — but over time this could noticeably expand the market for crypto financial products.