Crypto market cap, explained
Market capitalisation is the number used to rank every cryptocurrency. How it is calculated, why it matters, and the traps hidden in big numbers.
See live market caps for the top 3,000 coins →
The formula
Market capitalisation, or market cap, is the current price of a coin multiplied by the number of coins in circulation. If a coin trades at $2 and 500 million coins are circulating, its market cap is $1 billion.
Rankings on Blockdeck and most other crypto sites are ordered by market cap, which is why Bitcoin and Ethereum sit at the top.
Why price alone is misleading
A coin priced at $0.0001 is not cheap and a coin priced at $50,000 is not expensive on that basis alone. What matters is how many coins exist. A tiny price multiplied by hundreds of trillions of coins can still give a market cap in the billions.
Comparing market caps lets you compare the size of two projects fairly, whatever their unit price.
Circulating, total and maximum supply
Circulating supply is the number of coins available in the market today. Total supply also counts coins that exist but are locked, for example by a team or a treasury. Maximum supply is the hard cap the protocol will ever allow, if there is one. Bitcoin's maximum is 21 million.
Many projects release locked coins over time. When that happens, circulating supply rises, and the market cap can grow even if the price does not.
Fully diluted valuation
Fully diluted valuation, or FDV, multiplies the price by the maximum supply instead of the circulating supply. It shows what the market cap would be if every coin were already circulating at today's price. A large gap between market cap and FDV means a lot of supply is still to come.
Total crypto market cap
Adding up the market caps of all coins gives the total crypto market cap, shown at the top of Blockdeck. Its daily change is a quick read on whether the market as a whole is rising or falling.