Market Capitalization
Market cap · Mcap
A coin's price multiplied by the number of coins in circulation: the market value of all the coins that are out there.
Simple explanation
Background: Korean investors see coin prices in won, while market caps come from global data providers such as CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko, mostly in dollars. CoinGaja's own coin list and index are ranked by Upbit trading value, not by market cap.
Market cap answers the question "what would all the coins in circulation be worth at today's price?" It is the price of one coin times the circulating supply. It works like a company's market value (share price × shares), except that crypto projects often keep large amounts locked for the team, the foundation or early investors, so the count used is the circulating supply, not everything ever issued. CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko both calculate it this way.
Several supply terms get mixed up. Circulating supply is what the public can trade right now. Total supply is everything created so far minus coins verifiably burned. Max supply is the most that can ever exist (21 million for bitcoin). Locked tokens count in total supply but not in circulating supply. Price × total supply (max supply, for some providers) is the fully diluted valuation (FDV): the market cap if every token were already out.
Never judge a coin as cheap or dear by its unit price. A coin priced at ₩100 (about 7 cents) with tens of billions in circulation can be worth far more than one priced at tens of thousands of won. To compare sizes, compare market caps. Market cap rankings are the usual yardstick for how big a coin is, and Korean exchanges look at market cap and trading volume, among other things, when deciding on investment warnings and delistings.
Be especially careful with coins whose circulating supply is small next to their FDV. As locked tokens unlock on schedule, circulating supply grows and more coins can hit the market. With the price unchanged, more supply means a bigger market cap, and even if selling from the unlock pushes the price down, the market cap can still rise. So a growing market cap does not mean the price went up. Far more tokens reaching the market than the plan said is also one of the commonest reasons Korean exchanges put a coin under an investment warning.
Market cap is not money that has flowed in. It is the latest price applied to every coin in circulation, so a thinly traded coin with a small float can swing in price, and in market cap, on little money. A ₩100 billion (about $71 million) market cap does not mean anyone could sell that much at that price. To know how much can really change hands, look at trading value and order book depth too.
Providers' numbers differ a little, because they average prices across different exchanges, check supply differently and include different coins. CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko verify the supply figures projects submit and flag or leave blank the ones they could not verify. The total crypto market cap differs too: CoinGecko adds up every coin it tracks but leaves out wrapped, bridged and staked tokens so value is not counted twice, while TradingView's TOTAL index adds up only the top 125 coins.
Global providers usually quote market cap in dollars, so in won you multiply by the exchange rate. Recalculate with a Korean exchange's won price and the market cap looks bigger by the kimchi premium, or smaller during a reverse premium. The global market cap ranking and the coins that trade most on Korean won exchanges are also quite different. CoinGaja's coin list and Kimchi Premium Index are ranked by Upbit 24-hour trading value, not market cap, and the tiles on its heatmap are sized by each coin's share of 24-hour trading value. On the top bar of CoinGaja's price pages, "Market" shows the global crypto market cap in dollars with its 24-hour change, and "24H Vol" the global 24-hour trading value. They come from a data provider, so other sites may show slightly different numbers.
Example
Coin A: price ₩140 ($0.10) × circulating supply 1 billion = market cap ₩140 billion ($100 million)
Coin B: price ₩70,000 ($50) × 1 million coins = ₩70 billion ($50 million) → one B costs 500 times as much as one A, yet A's market cap is twice B's
If A's total supply is 5 billion → FDV = ₩140 × 5 billion = ₩700 billion ($500 million); circulating share = 1 ÷ 5 = 20%
If at the same moment A trades at ₩144.20 in Korea, a kimchi premium of +3.00% → market cap at the Korean price ₩144.2 billion (3% bigger)
200 million locked tokens unlock, circulating supply becomes 1.2 billion, and the price falls 10% to ₩126 → market cap = ₩126 × 1.2 billion = ₩151.2 billion ($108 million): the price fell, yet the market cap rose 8.00%
※ Example numbers, for illustration only
See it on CoinGaja
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