What is CoinMarketCap and what is it used for?

CoinMarketCap is one of the most widely used crypto price-tracking sites. It collects data from exchanges and ranks coins by market cap, the price multiplied by circulating supply. Many people treat its rankings as a quick map of the market, though they are estimates rather than official figures.

What is CoinMarketCap used for?

People mostly use it to check a coin's price, rank, 24-hour trading volume, supply and price history. Each coin page lists the exchanges and trading pairs where it trades, plus links to the project's website and explorer. The site also ranks exchanges and publishes learning articles through CoinMarketCap Academy.

According to CoinMarketCap Academy, its price is a volume-weighted average of prices across trading pairs, with outliers and restricted pairs left out. Its support pages say each pair's volume is converted to US dollars and pairs with abnormal volume are flagged and excluded from totals. Pairs also get a liquidity score and a confidence indicator.

What is the CoinMarketCap app?

CoinMarketCap offers iOS and Android apps with the same price data, plus a watchlist and portfolio tracker. As of November 2026, its site also lists tools such as a converter, price alerts, a crypto data API, a Telegram bot and AI features. Product lineups change often, so the site itself is the best place to check what is currently offered.

What is the CoinMarketCap 20 Index?

The CoinMarketCap 20 Index, or CMC20, is a benchmark of the 20 largest crypto projects in CoinMarketCap's ranking. Its methodology excludes stablecoins, wrapped or asset-backed tokens such as WBTC and stETH, and coins with limited investability, giving Monero as an example. It is weighted by market cap, priced in US dollars and rebalanced monthly. The base level of 100 was set on January 1, 2024, and the index launched on September 1, 2025.

CoinMarketCap's index page also describes a tradable token, the CoinMarketCap 20 DTF, built with the Reserve protocol to track the index. For how index products work in general, see what is a crypto index fund.

Who owns CoinMarketCap?

Brandon Chez started CoinMarketCap in 2013. Binance, the crypto exchange, bought it in April 2020 without disclosing the price. At the time, both companies said CoinMarketCap would run independently and that Binance's own listing would have no special treatment in the rankings. Chez stepped down as chief executive and stayed on as an adviser.

Because a major exchange owns a major data site, some users compare its figures with an independent rival. CoinGecko is the most common alternative, and the two sites often show slightly different numbers for the same coin.