Index Cooperative is a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) that creates and manages a variety of DeFi products. The platform focuses on building secure, accessible, and easy-to-use financial products like crypto indices and exchange-traded products (ETPs). These products aim to provide exposure to important themes in decentralised finance (DeFi).
Index Cooperative operates on the Ethereum blockchain and utilises its smart contract capabilities to manage and deploy its products. The governance token for this DAO is named INDEX, which is an ERC-20 token with a limited supply. Index Cooperative implements smart contracts, originally developed by Set Protocol, to automate the management of its offerings, which include sector indices, leverage and inverse products, and yield-generating strategies. Holders of the INDEX token participate in governance, voting on improvement protocols and decisions regarding the launch and maintenance of products.
Index Cooperative offers several use cases including:
Index Cooperative was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in Georgetown, Texas, USA. Its initial product, the DeFi Pulse Index (DPI), launched that same year, quickly gaining traction with $2 million in assets locked early on. The cooperative introduced meta-governance in November 2020, allowing token holders to participate in external governance decisions. Since its inception, Index Cooperative has raised $10 million in funding, backed by investors like Galaxy and Blockchain Capital. Over time, the organisation has evolved by broadening its community to include finance professionals and DeFi experts, aiming to support the widespread institutional adoption of DeFi through its products.