Market Cap

Data to 2026-09-20. On-chain metrics are fetched on a rotation, so this can trail the build by a few days.

How to read it

Total market capitalisation on a log scale, which is the only sensible way to view an asset that has grown by several orders of magnitude. On a log axis, equal vertical distances represent equal percentage changes, so the 2013 and 2021 cycles become visually comparable rather than the earlier one being flattened into invisibility.

How it's calculated

Price multiplied by circulating supply.

What it did in past cycles

Peaks: $13.7B (2013-12-04), $329B (2017-12-16), $1.27T (2021-11-08), $2.49T (2025-10-06). Troughs: $2.4B (2015-01-14), $55.5B (2018-12-15), $303B (2022-11-09), $1.17T (2026-06-30).

The pattern worth noticing is that each bear-market low has landed roughly where the previous cycle peaked, give or take. The December 2018 low of $55.5B was four times the 2013 peak; the November 2022 low of $303B was just under the 2017 peak of $329B; the June 2026 low of $1.17T sits just under the 2021 peak of $1.27T. Two of those three are close enough to a floor at the prior peak to be interesting and far too few observations to be a rule.

Growth in percentage terms has slowed sharply, which the log axis is what makes visible. The 2013 to 2017 peak was a 24-fold increase; 2017 to 2021 was 3.9-fold; 2021 to 2025 was 2.0-fold.

What it doesn't tell you

Market cap counts every coin at the current price, including an estimated three to four million that are permanently lost, and coins that have not moved in a decade. It measures the value of the last trade multiplied by supply, not money that has entered the asset.

The distinction matters at the scale below. Reaching $2.49 trillion did not require $2.49 trillion of inflows; it required the marginal buyer to pay $124,824 for the last coin traded, with 19.9 million other coins repriced by implication. Realized cap, the denominator of MVRV, is the closer measure of money actually committed.

Reading it with other metrics

Bitcoin dominance puts this number in the context of the rest of the asset class, and Bitcoin vs gold puts it against the asset it is most often compared to — gold's market value is several times larger, which is the substance behind most 'Bitcoin could still Nx' arguments.

World government debt and Bitcoin vs US M2 are the macro framing: at its 2025 peak Bitcoin's market value was roughly 2.6% of the reported world government debt stock.