FTSE Russell, a major global index and data provider, is making its market index data available on blockchain networks for the first time through a partnership with Chainlink, a leading decentralized oracle service.
Key Details of the Integration
- Data Published: FTSE Russell's equity, foreign exchange (FX), and digital asset benchmarks will be published on multiple blockchains using Chainlink's DataLink service.
- Purpose: According to FTSE Russell CEO Fiona Bassett, publishing this data on-chain helps securely distribute trusted, high-quality data that powers traditional finance (TradFi) to developers and institutions building on blockchain networks.
- Availability: The integration makes FTSE Russell's global indices continuously available on-chain, allowing for secure, multi-chain referencing.
- Significance: Ram Kumar of OpenLedger noted that bringing these "canonical benchmarks natively available" on-chain "turns traditional reference indices into programmable, verifiable financial primitives," lending "institutional legitimacy" to on-chain finance (DeFi).
Benefits for Developers and Institutions
Making this institutional-grade data accessible on-chain unlocks new opportunities:
- Institutions: They can launch tokenized index products and structured notes that use real-time, on-chain price feeds backed by a trusted $18 trillion benchmark provider like FTSE Russell.
- Developers: They gain access to deterministic, high-integrity data needed to build advanced DeFi products, such as index-tracking vaults, options, or autonomous agents that rebalance based on benchmark movements. This also enables auditable risk management.
How Blockchain Oracles Work with Indices
- Data Bridge: Oracles like Chainlink act as a secure bridge, feeding external, real-world data (which smart contracts can't access alone) onto the blockchain.
- Verification: Chainlink's network collects data from multiple trusted sources, verifies it using various independent nodes, and delivers a cryptographically signed record on-chain, ensuring accuracy and transparency without relying on a single intermediary.
Recent News Highlighting Chainlink's Role
- Caliber's LINK Treasury: Publicly traded asset manager Caliber has recently purchased approximately $6.7 million worth of LINK (Chainlink's native token) for its treasury, citing the network's unique value proposition.
- Bitwise ETF Filing: Crypto asset manager Bitwise filed with the SEC to offer a Chainlink ETF, which would directly hold the LINK token.
November 2025, Cryptoniteuae