What is CoinGecko and what is it used for?

CoinGecko is a website and app that gathers cryptocurrency market data from many exchanges and shows it for free. It was founded on April 8, 2014, by two founders known as TM and Bobby, and calls itself the largest independent crypto data aggregator. As of November 2026, its about page says it tracks over 22,000 crypto assets across more than 1,000 exchanges.

What is CoinGecko used for?

Most people use CoinGecko to look up a coin's price, market cap, trading volume and price history. Each coin page also lists its contract addresses, links to the project's site and explorer, and the exchanges and trading pairs where it trades.

Journalists, apps and researchers often cite CoinGecko figures because they are free and public. It also tracks community and developer activity, such as code updates, and runs exchange rankings.

How does CoinGecko calculate prices and market cap?

According to its methodology page, CoinGecko pulls every ticker for a coin from the exchanges it has integrated. It drops outliers first. With three or more tickers it uses a statistical band around the median, and with fewer it treats any move of more than 100 times the prior price as an outlier. The final price is a volume-weighted average of what is left.

Market cap is that price multiplied by circulating supply. Supply comes from project teams and is checked by CoinGecko, with locked tokens deducted. If CoinGecko cannot verify it, the field shows a dash. Our guide to circulating, total and max supply explains why these numbers differ.

CoinGecko says listing is free and that its staff never ask for listing fees. A listed coin must have a working website, a block explorer and at least one active exchange listing, and it must state its circulating supply. Listing does not mean CoinGecko endorses a project.

What are the CoinGecko app and CoinGecko API?

The CoinGecko apps for iOS and Android launched in July 2018 and add watchlists, price alerts and a portfolio tool, a type of service covered in how crypto portfolio trackers work. GeckoTerminal, launched in August 2021, shows live charts for tokens trading on decentralized exchanges.

The API lets developers pull the same data into their own apps. As of November 2026, the free Demo plan allows 10,000 call credits a month at up to 100 calls per minute and requires attribution. Paid tiers run from Basic up to Enterprise.

How does CoinGecko compare with CoinMarketCap?

Both sites aggregate prices and rank coins, but their numbers rarely match exactly, because each chooses its own exchanges, supply figures and outlier rules. A CoinMarketCap Academy article notes that CoinMarketCap scores individual trading pairs on liquidity, while CoinGecko's Trust Score grades whole exchanges on liquidity, cybersecurity, regulation, past incidents and proof of reserves.

Figures on any data site are estimates, so checking more than one source helps when a number looks unusual.