What is total crypto market capitalisation?
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 4 min
In short
Total market capitalisation is simply the sum of every tracked asset's capitalisation. It gives a rough sense of scale, but it is not the amount of money invested in the market, and the figure shifts with which assets a provider counts.
Key points
- A plain sum of every tracked asset's capitalisation
- Not the same thing as money invested in the market
- Providers count different numbers of assets
- A thin market's price still multiplies full supply
Definition
The sum of price multiplied by circulating supply across every cryptoasset a data provider tracks.
Each asset's capitalisation is price times circulating supply, and the total is their sum. Quoted in trillions, it is a handy sense of scale, but the inputs are only the last traded price and a supply figure — no record of money actually committed is involved.
An asset that barely trades still contributes its last price multiplied by its entire circulating supply. Nobody could sell that supply at that price, so the total is best read as a hypothetical: what the market would be worth if every unit were valued at its last print.
Providers also differ on whether stablecoins are included and when delisted assets are dropped. Two sites can differ by hundreds of billions on the same day, so when you track the figure over time, stay with one provider's series.
Watch out for
- · Explanations calling it 'money that flowed into the market' are wrong
- · The thinner an asset trades, the more detached its contribution
- · Comparing day-on-day or year-on-year figures across providers is meaningless