Market Cap
a.k.a. Market capitalization, MCAP, Mcap
The total value of all of a coin's (or company's) units in circulation: price multiplied by circulating supply.
Market cap (market capitalization, often written MCAP) tells you how big something is, not how expensive one unit is. For a coin, it's the price times the circulating supply. For a company, it's share price times the number of shares.
It's the fairest way to compare coins. A coin at $0.01 isn't "cheap" if there are a trillion of them, and a coin at $500 isn't "expensive" if there are only a few thousand. Some sites also show a "fully diluted" market cap, using the total supply, which hints at how much new selling could come as locked coins unlock.
Why price alone misleads
- Coin X trades at $0.002 with 500 billion coins circulating: 0.002 × 500,000,000,000 = $1 billion market cap.
- Coin Y trades at $40 with 25 million coins circulating: 40 × 25,000,000 = $1 billion market cap.
- To double, both need another $1 billion of value. Coin X reaching '$1' would mean a $500 billion market cap.
Bottom line: The two coins are the same size. A low price per coin is not a discount.
Buying a sub-penny coin because it 'only needs to reach $1'. Multiply by the supply first.
Keep this word for good
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