Circulating Supply
In simple terms
Circulating supply is the amount of cryptocurrency that's currently out in the world being bought, sold, and used by people. Think of it like the cash in everyone's wallets and registers right now, as opposed to cash still locked in a bank vault.
Definition
The number of coins currently available to the public.
In depth
Circulating supply refers to the number of cryptocurrency tokens that have been mined or minted and are actively distributed across public addresses and exchanges, excluding coins held in locked contracts, treasury reserves, or developer wallets. This metric is distinct from total supply (all coins that exist or will exist) and max supply (the hard cap programmed into the protocol). Circulating supply is tracked on-chain through blockchain explorers and is a key input for calculating market capitalization, as it represents the economically active token base available for transactions and trading.
How does Circulating Supply work?
Circulating supply starts from every unit that has been issued, then subtracts the ones that are not freely transferable: allocations still sitting in vesting contracts, unspent treasury or foundation wallets, and anything sent to a burn address nobody can spend from. Data providers calculate it by reading balances on-chain and applying their own rules about which addresses count as locked. The figure rises as block rewards mint new units and as vesting schedules release allocations, and falls when units are burned. Because the locked-or-not judgment differs by provider, reputable sites can publish different numbers for the same asset.
An example
A token has a total supply of 1,000,000,000. Of that, 400,000,000 sits in a four-year vesting contract and 100,000,000 in an unspent treasury wallet, leaving 500,000,000 circulating. At an illustrative price of $0.20, the quoted market cap would be $100 million, while the fully diluted figure at the same price would be $200 million. The gap represents supply that has not reached the market yet.
Figures are illustrative only.
What beginners get wrong
- Comparing market caps across assets without checking how much supply is still locked hides the scheduled unlocks that will change the circulating figure later.
- Circulating supply is an estimate, not a measurement; two data providers using different rules about locked wallets can report noticeably different numbers.
- Market capitalisation is supply multiplied by the last traded price, not the amount of money that has gone into an asset, and the two are rarely close.
- A small circulating supply can look scarce while the max supply sits far higher, meaning most units simply have not been issued yet.
Related terms
Part of
What is tokenomics, and why does token supply matter? — the subject page for tokenomics and supply, with all 14 of its definitions in one place.
Educational only — not financial advice.