In digital assets, classification informs investment decisions, drives analytics, and underpins the structure of indices, screeners, and research tools. But the taxonomy frameworks the industry has relied on are inconsistent, duplicative, and misaligned with how crypto actually works. Traditional finance solved this challenge with the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS), which brought a unified, hierarchical approach to classifying equities. A similar standardized framework is urgently needed in crypto to bring clarity, consistency, and comparability across a rapidly evolving ecosystem.
The Tie Announcements
Introducing The Tie’s Rebuilt Digital Asset Taxonomy
By Reilly Decker
May 26, 2025
A new standard for classifying tokens with clarity, accuracy, and institutional-grade flexibility.
Today, we’re excited to introduce The Tie’s rebuilt Digital Asset Taxonomy — a comprehensive framework, built from the ground up, that standardizes how tokens are classified across The Tie Terminal and APIs.
Why We Rebuilt It
Our previous taxonomy — like many others in the space — was well intentioned, but struggled with usability due to both double counting and inflexibility. Assets could be assigned to multiple sectors, leading to inflated sector-level valuations and analytical noise. Additionally, our old system mixed broad sector-level classifications with what we are now calling attributes (i.e. Governance Token was a sub-sector in the Misc. sector while Layer 2 was a sub-sector in the Smart Contract Platform sector.) The addition of attributes allows for more flexibility. For example, allowing a user to specifically look at games that are also Telegram apps or DeFi Lending protocols that also have governance tokens.
Rather than patching the system, we started from scratch — rethinking the taxonomy based on how institutions analyze the digital asset landscape today.
What’s Changed
The new taxonomy introduces a multi-layered classification framework, designed to balance structure with flexibility:
- Primary Sectors & Sub-Sectors: Every asset is assigned one primary sector (e.g. DeFi, Infrastructure, Smart Contract Platforms), but may have multiple sub-sector classifications within their assigned sector (e.g. DEXs, Cross-Chain Protocols). This ensures cleaner analytics and eliminates double-counting on the sector level.
- Attributes: A flexible tagging layer that captures specific traits — such as “Fiat-Backed”, “Telegram App”, and “Governance Token.” Attributes allow cross-sector and sub-sector filtering for deeper comparative analysis.
- Ecosystem Layer: Assets are also tagged by the chains their tokens or smart contracts are deployed on, enabling powerful queries like “Governance tokens on Ethereum” or “Gaming tokens built on Solana.”
- Secondary Sectors (Smart Contract Platforms only): To address the growth in specialized smart contract platforms, certain assets like Immutable (a gaming-focused L2), may receive a secondary classification. This preserves contextual richness without compromising data integrity. Users of our taxonomy on The Tie Terminal have the option of either seeing an asset exclusively in its Primary Sector or also toggling to show an asset in its Secondary Sector.
Why It Matters
With this overhaul, users of The Tie Terminal and data integration partners can now:
- Analyze sectors with true signal: No more double-counting for sectors. Sector-level metrics are clean, accurate, and aligned with market data.
- Build custom views: Filter assets by sector, sub-sector chain, and attribute to surface exactly what matters — from AI protocols on Ethereum to USD-backed stablecoins across ecosystems.
- License powerful classification data: Exchanges, index providers, and research platforms can use The Tie’s taxonomy to power product interfaces, benchmarks, and structured datasets.
This launch also sets the foundation for more granular performance reporting — including monthly updates on sector and sub-sector activity — and expanded data partnerships across the digital asset ecosystem.
Built for Institutions. Ready for the Market.
Crypto’s complexity demands a taxonomy that reflects its nuance. We’ve built a framework that’s not only analytically sound but also operationally scalable — and we’re just getting started.
Explore the new taxonomy live in The Tie Terminal, or reach out to our team to discuss licensing and integration opportunities.
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