Market cap
Market cap is the price of a coin multiplied by the number of coins in circulation. It shows the size of an asset rather than how much money went into it, and it is the figure projects are compared by.
How it works
The count uses circulating supply, meaning the coins the market can actually reach. Locked, team-reserved and unissued coins stay out, so the same coin carries different caps depending on what counts as circulating.
Alongside it sits fully diluted valuation: price times the entire future supply. When it is three times the current cap, two thirds of the coins have yet to reach the market and one day will.
A cap is not money invested. Adding a billion to it does not take a billion: one small trade at a new price is enough, because every coin is repriced at once.
Why the price per coin tells you nothing
Coin A trades at $0.05 with 10 billion circulating. Coin B trades at $80 with 3 million circulating.
| A: 0.05 × 10,000,000,000 | $500,000,000 |
| B: 80 × 3,000,000 | $240,000,000 |
The "cheap" A is twice the size of the "expensive" B. Price per coin depends only on how many pieces the supply was cut into. Which is why "this $0.01 coin will reach $100" is arithmetically impossible: at that supply it implies a cap larger than the world economy.
What to weigh
- The gap to fully dilutedA wide gap means future selling pressure as locked coins reach the market.
- The unlock scheduleThe dates team and investor allocations unlock are known in advance and usually spelled out in the tokenomics.
- Volume against capA billion-dollar cap on $50,000 of daily volume means nobody exits at that price.
- Who decides what circulatesSupply figures are often supplied by the project itself, which is exactly why aggregators disagree.