Technical Definition

Circulating Supply

The number of tokens currently available to trade, excluding locked, reserved and unissued tokens.

By Crypto University Editorial
BlockchainTransactionWallet

✦ Key Insight

A thin float can make a price look strong on very little buying, and each unlock adds new sellers to that float.

✕ Common Misconceptions

Comparing market caps across projects without checking the float ratio. Also trusting a self-reported figure — verify against the vesting schedule.

Detailed Explanation

Circulating supply is the float. Team allocations under vesting, treasury reserves and tokens not yet minted are excluded. Because market cap is built on this number, a project can look small while a large share of supply waits to be released.

In Practice

“A token has 1 billion total supply but only 80 million circulating. Market cap looks modest, while nearly 92% of supply is still to arrive.”

Dig Deeper

Wallet

Software or hardware that stores your private keys and lets you sign transactions.

Token

An asset created by a smart contract on an existing blockchain rather than being that blockchain's native currency.

Blockchain

A shared, append-only record of transactions maintained by many independent computers at once.

Transaction

A blockchain transaction is a signed or authorized instruction that changes blockchain state or transfers value when accepted by the network.