KRYPTOKAP · SERIES 2026
Total crypto market cap

Every cryptocurrency, ranked by what it's worth

Market gauges

Calculated from current prices.

KryptoKap Pulse

Market mood

History and details →
How it's scored
Season meter

Altcoin season

Share of the top 100 coins beating Bitcoin over 90 days.

Bitcoin seasonAltcoin season
History and details →
How it's scored

Stablecoins and gold tokens are left out. 75 or more means altcoin season; 25 or less means Bitcoin season.

Index

KryptoKap 10

The ten largest coins, weighted by market cap.

History and members →
How it's built

Started at 1,000. Stablecoins and gold tokens excluded. Members are the ten largest coins at each update, and the divisor adjusts when they change so the line stays continuous.

Countdown

Bitcoin halving

Every 210,000 blocks, the reward for mining new Bitcoin is cut in half.

1,050,000
Estimated date
Reward per block3.125 → 1.5625 BTC
Fees, blocks and network →
How it's estimated

Bitcoin aims for one block every 10 minutes, so the date is the remaining blocks × 10 minutes. Real block times vary, so the estimate drifts by days.

DeFi

Total value locked: money deposited in lending, trading and staking apps, and where it lives.

Total value locked

By chain

Stablecoins

Digital dollars: how many exist, who issues them, and whether each one is holding its $1 peg.

Total supply

Issuers and pegs

CoinSupplySharePrice
A price more than 0.5% from $1.00 is flagged in red.

Market map

Coins grouped by sector. Circle size is market cap, color is the move since the start of the week. Press play to replay the week.

Swipe sideways to explore the map →
DownFlatUp

The week's race

The ten biggest coins over the last 7 days.

Milestones

Flippenings and market cap thresholds, logged as they happen.

Headlines

The latest crypto news from major outlets, linked to the coins they mention.

All coins

Click a row for quick stats, or open the full profile.

Screener →
#CoinPrice1h24h7dMarket capVolume 24hSupplyLast 7 days

Tools

Calculators for prices, market caps, history and risk, using live data.

Today's crypto prices by market cap

How do the bid, ask and spread work in crypto?

The price you see on a chart is usually the last trade. Buy now and you won't get it.

You'll pay the lowest price a seller is asking. Sell now and you'll get the highest a buyer is bidding. The gap between them is a cost most people never notice.

Two prices, not one

Order book diagram: sell orders from 100.05 to 100.45 above, buy orders from 99.95 to 99.55 below, with a 0.10 spread between the best ask and best bid.
The best ask (100.05) is the cheapest seller and the best bid (99.95) is the highest buyer. Buying and selling straight back loses the 0.10 gap. Free to reuse

Every exchange keeps an order book, which is a list of buyers waiting at different prices and sellers waiting at different prices. The best of each are the bid and the ask.

If you buy instantly, you pay the ask. If you sell instantly, you get the bid. So the moment you buy and sell straight back, you lose the spread, before any fees.

Big, busy coins like Bitcoin usually have a very narrow spread on major exchanges. Small or thinly traded coins can have wide spreads, which quietly makes every trade more expensive.

A worked example

The best bid is $99.95 and the best ask is $100.05, so the spread is $0.10, or 0.10%. Buy $1,000 at the ask and sell straight back at the bid, and you lose about $1 before fees.

On a small coin with a 2% spread, the same round trip costs $20. Trade that coin weekly and the spread alone costs over $1,000 a year.

Who sets the spread

Market makers post buy and sell orders close to the price and earn the gap. More competition between them means tighter spreads, which is why the largest coins on the busiest exchanges are cheapest to trade.

Spreads widen when markets are fast or quiet, because market makers pull back when the risk of being caught by a big move rises.

Why each trade costs half the spread

Number line for a small coin with a bid of $0.4950, a mid price of $0.5000 and an ask of $0.5050. The spread is $0.0100, or 2% of the mid price, so each trade costs about 1%: $20 on a $2,000 buy and another $20 on the sale.
The fair reference price is the mid. Buying at the ask and selling at the bid each give up half the spread, before any fees. Free to reuse

The midpoint between the best bid and best ask is the fairest single estimate of what a coin is worth right now. Most price feeds, including the prices you see on market data sites, sit close to that mid. When you buy instantly you pay above it, and when you sell instantly you get less than it, so each side of a trade gives up about half the spread.

Take a small coin with a best bid of $0.4950 and a best ask of $0.5050. The mid is $0.5000 and the spread is $0.0100, which is 2% of the mid. Buy $2,000 at the ask and you are already about 1% behind the mid, or $20. Sell later at the bid and you lose another 1%, so if the mid price never moved, you would end $40 down before fees.

This is why the spread is easy to underestimate. A coin can show 0% change on the day while every trader who bought and sold in that time lost money to it. When you compare coins, look at the spread as a percentage, not in dollars. A $0.10 spread on a $100 coin is 0.1%, while a $0.01 spread on a $0.50 coin is 2%.

Spreads hidden inside zero-fee quotes

Comparison for a coin with a $100 mid price. On an exchange order book the buy price is $100.05 and sell price $99.95 plus a 0.1% fee each way, about 0.3% round trip. A zero-fee app quotes $101.00 to buy and $99.00 to sell, about 2% round trip. On $1,000 that is roughly $3 versus $20.
Apps that advertise no fees often quote a wider spread instead. Compare the buy and sell prices, not just the fee line. Free to reuse

Many brokerage apps and simple buy screens advertise no trading fees. They still earn money, often by quoting you a buy price above the market ask and a sell price below the market bid. The difference is a spread they set themselves, and it never appears as a separate line on your receipt.

Compare two ways to trade a coin with a $100 mid price. On an exchange order book you might buy at $100.05, sell at $99.95 and pay a 0.1% fee each way, about 0.3% in total. A zero-fee app might quote $101.00 to buy and $99.00 to sell. That is a 2% round trip, so $1,000 in and straight back out costs roughly $20 instead of $3.

You can check this yourself in a minute. Open the app's buy and sell screens at the same moment and note both prices, then compare them with the order book on a large exchange or the live price on a market data site. If the app's buy price is well above the market and its sell price well below, the fee is in the spread. Some apps also show a line called a spread or a price markup in their fee disclosures.

Key terms

Bid
The highest price a buyer is offering right now.
Ask
The lowest price a seller will accept right now.
Spread
Ask minus bid, often shown as a percentage.
Market maker
A trader who keeps orders on both sides and earns the spread.

The spread is a cost you pay up front

  1. Where the price is heading. A tight spread says the market is busy, not which way it's going.
  2. The cost of a big order. The spread covers the first small slice; larger orders move further into the book.

What people get wrong

Why it matters

The spread is a hidden cost on every instant trade, and a wide one is a warning sign about how easy a coin is to sell.

Common questions

How do I see the spread?

Most exchanges show the order book on the trading screen. The spread is the ask minus the bid, often shown as a percentage.

Why is the spread wider at night or on weekends?

Fewer traders are active, so fewer orders sit near the price. Spreads also widen in fast markets while orders are being pulled and replaced.

Is a 1% spread high for crypto?

For a large coin like Bitcoin on a major exchange, yes. Spreads there are often a few hundredths of a percent. For a small or new token, 1% can be normal, and some trade with spreads of 5% or more. Compare the spread with how often you plan to trade.