Market cap vs fully diluted value

Why a coin's price alone tells you little, and how market cap and fully diluted value help you compare coins fairly.

A coin priced at $0.01 is not automatically cheaper than one priced at $100. What matters is how many coins exist.

Market cap

Market cap = price × circulating supply. It is the total value of all coins that are currently in circulation. It's the usual way to rank coins by size.

Fully diluted value (FDV)

FDV = price × maximum supply. It shows what the market cap would be if every coin that will ever exist were already in circulation. When FDV is much larger than market cap, many coins are still locked or not yet released. As they unlock, they can add selling pressure.

A quick example

A token trades at $1 with 100 million coins circulating and 1 billion maximum. Its market cap is $100 million, but its FDV is $1 billion. Only 10% of the supply is out. Buyers should know that 900 million more coins will reach the market over time.

Supply matters too

Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21 million coins. Some coins have no maximum and keep issuing new coins. Check the supply section of any coin page before comparing prices.