What is a data aggregator?
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 4 min
In short
A data aggregator collects prices, volumes and supply figures from many exchanges and chains and presents them in one place. For the same asset, the numbers differ depending on which venues are included and how they are weighted. What you see is a value computed by a particular method — not the single correct answer.
Key points
- Collects data across many venues and chains
- Numbers vary with venue selection and weighting
- Supply definitions differ between providers
- Being listed is not a quality signal
Definition
A service that gathers prices, volumes, market capitalisation and supply figures from multiple exchanges and blockchains and presents them per asset.
The same asset trades on dozens or hundreds of venues worldwide, each with its own price and volume. An aggregator collects those and presents a single representative figure, usually alongside on-chain data such as supply and holder counts.
How that figure is built differs by provider: which venues are considered trustworthy, whether prices are volume-weighted, how outliers are handled. That is why two sites can show slightly different prices at the same moment — it is expected, not an error.
Supply is equally a judgement call. Including locked tokens, excluding burned ones, and deciding how to treat coins presumed lost all change the market capitalisation. When comparing rankings, it is worth at least confirming that the supply definitions match.
Watch out for
- · A listing is not a review or a quality guarantee
- · Data from venues with inflated volume can be mixed in
- · API delays and outages leave displayed figures out of date