Introducing Crypto's Digital Asset Classification System Library

Bringing Order to Crypto: Introducing the DACS Library

The cryptocurrency industry is messy and disorganized.

Thousands of digital assets exist across an industry that continues to expand, yet finding and comparing cryptocurrencies that serve a particular purpose can be surprisingly difficult.

Crypto data aggregators have done an excellent job bringing prices, market capitalization, trading volume and other market information together. However, the way digital assets are separated and classified often leaves much to be desired.

One of the biggest problems is determining what exactly should define a cryptocurrency.

A project may operate on a particular blockchain, participate in decentralized finance, incorporate artificial intelligence, interact with several ecosystems and use whatever technology currently dominates industry headlines.

Those things may describe technologies or ecosystems surrounding the project, but they don't necessarily answer a more fundamental question:

What is the primary function of the digital asset itself?

This becomes especially problematic in an industry where projects frequently adopt the latest technological buzzwords and trends. Two fundamentally different digital assets can appear alongside one another simply because they share a technology, platform or popular industry label.

For someone trying to discover cryptocurrencies that meet a particular need, that can turn research into a frustrating experience.

Czerka Labs created its own answer to that problem:

The Digital Assets Classification System Library — DACS Library for short.

The Dewey Decimal Principle — Reimagined for Crypto

When we began thinking about how to organize digital assets, we looked at a system people have used to organize enormous collections of information for generations: the library.

The DACS Library uses the same organizational principle as the Dewey Decimal System: a numerical hierarchy that moves from broad categories to increasingly specific classifications.

Instead of organizing books, however, DACS applies that principle to digital assets.

We created our own classification structure specifically around the cryptocurrency economy.

A DACS classification can look something like this:

1.03.01

Each section of that number communicates something different.

1 — The asset's primary DACS category03 — The asset's subcategory01 — The asset's position within that classification

This creates a hierarchy in which an asset doesn't simply receive a collection of tags. It receives an organized position within the DACS Library.

Much like finding a book in a physical library, the classification itself helps tell you where to look and what type of asset you're looking at.

The Nine DACS Categories

To create the foundation of the system, Czerka Labs divided the digital-asset economy into nine primary categories.

1 — Technology

Digital assets whose primary function is providing a technology-based utility or service. For example, a token may contain metadata used to validate a user's identity, verify information or provide access to a technology service. The token itself must play a central role in providing that technological function.

2 — Consumer & Industrial

Assets primarily connected to consumer products, commercial services, business operations or industrial applications.

3 — Blockchain Technology

Assets whose primary purpose centers on blockchain infrastructure and technologies used to build, expand or operate blockchain-based systems.

4 — Governance, Protocols & Operations

Assets primarily associated with governance, decentralized organizations, protocol administration or the operation of blockchain ecosystems.

5 — Blockchain Currency

Assets whose primary role is functioning as a blockchain-native currency, monetary asset or medium of exchange.

6 — Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

Assets that serve as the primary reward, incentive or central currency of a decentralized financial service, such as yield farming and staking platforms. Simply being used in DeFi does not qualify an asset for this category; earning, rewarding or managing decentralized finance must be central to the asset's primary purpose.

7 — Fandom & Artverse

Assets centered around entertainment, communities, fandom, digital art, virtual worlds and their related economies.

8 — Real-World Assets (RWA)

Digital assets primarily designed to represent, connect with or facilitate assets and economic activity outside the blockchain-native economy.

9 — Stablecoins

Digital assets primarily designed to maintain a relatively stable value through a peg or another stabilization mechanism.

These nine categories create the top level of the DACS Library. Subcategories allow each one to be divided further as the number and variety of classified digital assets grow.

The objective isn't to force every cryptocurrency into whatever terminology happens to be popular today.

It's to ask a much simpler question:

What does this asset primarily exist to do?

One Industry, Too Many Duplicate Tickers

Classification wasn't the only organizational problem we encountered while building the library.

Crypto has another unusual problem:

Ticker symbols aren't necessarily unique.

Multiple unrelated cryptocurrencies can use the same symbol. That might be manageable when looking at a single exchange or project, but it becomes increasingly problematic when building a large research library, market-data system and collection of indexes.

So we added another layer of organization.

The DACS Library records an alternative exchange ticker where needed and assigns assets their own DACS Symbol.

The DACS Symbol allows every classified digital asset to maintain a unique identity within the Czerka Labs ecosystem, even when another cryptocurrency happens to use the same commonly recognized ticker.

That gives us a consistent way to identify assets throughout our library, research systems and indexes without depending entirely on an industry that doesn't enforce universally unique symbols.

Turning a Database Into a Library

We could have stopped there.

Give every cryptocurrency a classification, description and unique identifier and technically we would have a functional database.

But that's not really a library.

A library should help you learn.

That's why we're taking DACS beyond classification by incorporating educational videos from across the internet into individual asset entries.

Instead of only reading our description of a cryptocurrency, visitors can explore videos offering deeper explanations, project information and different perspectives surrounding that asset.

Our classification provides the structure.

The wider internet provides opportunities to explore further.

Together, they turn DACS from a list of cryptocurrencies into a place for digital-asset discovery.

Bringing Structure to a Messy Industry

Crypto doesn't have an information shortage.

It has an organization problem.

An enormous amount of information exists, but that information is scattered across exchanges, project websites, social media, data aggregators, videos, documentation and countless other sources.

Meanwhile, the industry itself continues to evolve.

Today's crypto economy remains heavily centered around blockchains, exchanges, protocols, governance systems and other infrastructure. Over time, practical applications and everyday uses may create entirely new sections of the digital-asset economy.

A classification system therefore needs room to grow with it.

That's what we're building with DACS.

Not another list showing which cryptocurrencies exist.

Not another collection of trending industry labels.

A library designed to give digital assets an organized place in an increasingly complicated digital economy.

☂️ Czerka Labs — Building the Wall Street of Crypto.