Circulating supply is the number of a cryptocurrency's coins or tokens that are in public hands and free to trade right now. Price sites multiply it by the current price to get market cap, so it decides where a coin ranks. It can never be larger than total supply, which counts every token minted so far minus any that were burned, or than maximum supply, the most that can ever exist where a cap is set. The crypto hub covers the wider market, and how to research a cryptocurrency shows how supply checks fit into a review of any token.
How is circulating supply calculated?
Start with every token minted, subtract the ones burned to get total supply, then subtract tokens that are locked or held back by insiders.
Each of the three supply figures answers a different question and moves for different reasons:
| Measure | What it counts | What changes it | What it feeds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum supply | The most tokens that can ever exist, set by code or a project's documents | Rarely anything; many coins have no maximum | Fully diluted valuation on CoinMarketCap |
| Total supply | Every token minted so far, minus tokens burned | Mining and staking rewards, new minting, burns | CoinGecko's fully diluted valuation |
| Circulating supply | Total supply minus locked tokens and, on some sites, insiders' holdings | Releases from vesting, burns, new issuance, a data site reclassifying wallets | Market cap and rankings |
A token is burned when it is sent to an address nobody controls or destroyed by the protocol itself, and it leaves total supply for good. A token is locked when a smart contract or legal agreement stops it moving until a set date, as with vesting contracts for founders and investors or Ripple's XRP escrow, which what is XRP explains. Locked tokens still count in total supply; they are simply not circulating yet. The gap between circulating and maximum supply is what fully diluted valuation puts a price on.
How much bitcoin is in circulation?
About 20.11 million BTC existed after block 974,216, mined at 05:42 UTC on November 2, 2026, which is 95.7% of the cap of just under 21 million.
Bitcoin has no vesting contracts or foundation reserve, so every coin mined counts as circulating and the total can be checked from the issuance rule alone. Each block may create a fixed subsidy that started at 50 BTC and halves every 210,000 blocks; it has been 3.125 BTC per block, since block 840,000 on April 20, 2024. Added up over every era, the cap comes to just under 21 million BTC (20,999,999.9769 BTC). Miners compete to create those blocks under proof of work.
Worked example: Counting bitcoin's supply at block 974,216
- Blocks 0 to 839,999, four subsidy eras: 210,000 × (50 + 25 + 12.5 + 6.25) = 19,687,500 BTC
- Blocks 840,000 to 974,216: 134,217 blocks × 3.125 = 419,428.125 BTC
- The most the rules allowed by then: 19,687,500 + 419,428.125 = 20,106,928.125 BTC
- Blockchair's count at that block: 20,106,899.17 BTC, 28.96 BTC below the ceiling
- Share of the cap: 20,106,899 ÷ 20,999,999.98 = 95.7%, leaving about 893,101 BTC to be mined over roughly the next 114 years
- New coins at 144 blocks a day: 144 × 3.125 = 450 BTC a day
The rules set a ceiling for each block rather than an exact payment, so explorers that add up the coins actually created can land slightly under the schedule. Lost coins stay in the count, because nothing on the blockchain separates a coin whose keys are gone from one that is simply unmoved, so the supply that could really trade is smaller than any published figure. What is bitcoin covers estimates of lost coins, the bitcoin halving shows how the subsidy steps down, and bitcoin's price page tracks the market value of the coins in circulation.
Ether is the uncapped counterexample. It has no maximum supply and no locked allocation, so data sites count all of it as circulating: Etherscan put the supply at about 122.18 million ETH (Etherscan, as of Nov 2, 2026), after 4.64 million ETH of fees had been burned since August 2021. CoinGecko counts staked ether as circulating too, even though validators must wait to withdraw it. What is Ethereum traces where every coin came from, and proof of stake explains the rewards that now add to it.
Why do CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap show different circulating supplies?
They draw the line differently: CoinGecko subtracts locked addresses from total supply, while CoinMarketCap counts only the public float, leaving out insiders' holdings even when they can move.
- CoinGecko takes circulating supply from project teams' data and verifies it. For tokens on smart-contract chains it deducts the balances of locked addresses the team identifies, such as foundation funds and the team's and investors' locked tokens, reading those balances from block explorers. It includes pre-mined coins because whoever controls them can sell them, and it marks figures it cannot verify with a dash.
- CoinMarketCap treats circulating supply as the crypto version of a stock's public float. It excludes tokens locked by smart contracts or legal agreements, allocations to teams and private investors, foundation, treasury and escrow holdings, reserves earmarked for marketing or the ecosystem, and tokens a project has bought back, whether or not any of them could move. Staked tokens are judged case by case. Its methodology also defines a second, larger figure that counts every token no longer under a lock.
Worked example: One token, two circulating supplies
A hypothetical token trades at $2.00.
- Minted: 1,000 million. Burned: 50 million. Total supply: 950 million
- In vesting contracts: 400 million
- In the foundation's treasury, free to move but untouched: 150 million
- With the public, including 100 million that users have staked: 400 million
- Subtracting only locked tokens: 950 − 400 = 550 million, a market cap of $1.10 billion
- Counting only the public float: 550 − 150 = 400 million, a market cap of $800 million
- Same token, same price: one market cap is 37.5% larger than the other
Bitcoin shows that timing matters too. CoinGecko and Blockchain.com both reported 20,105,365 BTC within 11 minutes of block 974,216, which is 1,534 BTC fewer than Blockchair's count, roughly three and a half days of new coins at 450 BTC a day.
Where do you see circulating supply?
You see it beside market cap on every price site, on block explorers' supply pages, in projects' token schedules and in stablecoin issuers' reserve reports.
- Price sites. The supply figure next to each market cap usually links to its source, which shows whether the site counted the float or everything free of a lock.
- Block explorers. Etherscan's supply page and bitcoin explorers' statistics pages give issuance totals straight from the chain.
- Token schedule pages. Many projects publish their own release plans; Sui's, for example, said roughly 5% of its 10 billion tokens circulated at its May 2023 launch.
- Stablecoin reports. A dollar stablecoin's circulation rises when its issuer mints coins and falls when holders redeem them. Circle's latest monthly examination report showed $73.96 billion of reserves against 73.88 billion USDC in circulation on September 30, 2026. How stablecoins work explains the mechanics, and the top stablecoins page tracks the latest supply.
How is circulating supply different from public float and currency in circulation?
All three count what is in public hands, but public float applies to company shares and currency in circulation to cash held outside the Federal Reserve and Treasury.
| Term | Where it is used | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| Circulating supply | Crypto price sites | Coins or tokens in public hands and free to trade |
| Total supply | Crypto price sites and explorers | Every token minted, locked or not, minus burns |
| Maximum supply | Protocol rules and project documents | The most tokens that can ever exist |
| Public float | Stock exchanges and index providers | Shares not held by insiders or strategic owners |
| Currency in circulation | The Federal Reserve's weekly H.4.1 release | US paper money and coin held by the public and in bank vaults |
The Federal Reserve estimated US currency in circulation at $2.48 trillion on average in the week ended October 28, 2026, $67.2 billion more than a year earlier, and that figure rises when people and banks want more cash, much as a stablecoin's circulation does. Nobody fixes a maximum for dollars, while a cryptocurrency's maximum, if it has one, is written into its rules.
What mistakes do people make with circulating supply?
The most common mistake is assuming every circulating coin could be bought, when lost coins and long-term holders keep some of it off the market for good or for years.
- Treating one site's number as the truth. The same token can show different supplies, and so different market caps, on two sites; compare like with like.
- Trusting a project's own figure. CoinMarketCap says it verifies supply because many projects have an incentive to inflate their circulating supply and market cap to rank higher.
- Assuming circulating supply only grows. Burns, redemptions and reclassified wallets can all shrink it.
- Forgetting new issuance. Bitcoin still adds 450 BTC a day and ether's validators earn new coins, so a figure from last month is already out of date.
- Confusing circulating with maximum. A low circulating share of the maximum signals future supply, which market cap alone does not show.