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.
Calculators for prices, market caps, history and risk, using live data.
History
Past investment
What money put into a coin on a past date is worth today.
Your investmentSame money in BitcoinMoney put in
Steady buying
DCA simulator
Buying a fixed amount on a schedule, compared with putting it all in on day one.
Steady buyingAll on day oneMoney put in
Reality check
Price target
What a target price would mean for a coin's market cap.
Converter
Convert
Any coin to dollars or to another coin, at live prices.
Head to head
Compare coins
Side-by-side price, size, supply and performance.
Market cap comparison
What if
The price a coin would have with another coin's market cap.
Flippening watch
Closest races
Neighbours nearest to swapping rank (stablecoins excluded).
Dominance
Market share
Share of total crypto market cap.
Profit & loss
Return check
What a past buy is worth at today's price.
Risk
Position size
How much to buy so a stop-out loses only what you choose.
A stop-loss isn't guaranteed. Gaps and slippage can fill past your stop and make the loss bigger.
Supply
Dilution check
Circulating vs. maximum supply, and the cap if every coin existed.
Investing
Average cost
Your weighted average price across several buys.
Investing
Break-even
The selling price that gets your money back after fees.
Risk
Comeback
The gain needed to recover from a drop.
Start
After drop
Investing
Rebalancer
Trades needed to get back to your target mix.
Coin
Now
Target %
Trade
Today's crypto prices by market cap
How does DeFi (decentralized finance) work?
There's no loan officer in DeFi. There's a piece of code that holds the money and follows its rules exactly, whether or not anyone is watching.
That makes it open to anyone with a wallet, at any hour. It also means nobody can step in when something goes wrong.
Finance as code
Many DeFi exchanges use a pool where A × B stays constant. Adding 100 A to a 1,000/1,000 pool returns 90.91 B, not 100.
DeFi apps are built from smart contracts, which are programs on a blockchain that hold funds and follow fixed rules. Anyone with a wallet can use them, at any hour.
The main types are exchanges that swap tokens using pools of funds instead of order books, lending markets where deposits earn interest and borrowers post collateral, and stablecoins and derivatives built on top.
Total value locked, or TVL, measures how much money is deposited in these apps. KryptoKap's DeFi section shows it from DefiLlama, along with which blockchains hold the most.
How a DeFi swap works
A pool holds two tokens, say 1,000 of each. The formula keeps their product constant, so when you add 100 of one, the pool gives back about 90.9 of the other. The bigger your trade compared with the pool, the worse your price.
People who deposit into the pool earn a small fee on each swap, usually around 0.3%, in return for providing the tokens.
How DeFi lending works
You deposit collateral, say $1,500 of ether, and borrow up to a limit, say $1,000 of a stablecoin. Interest rates move with supply and demand.
If ether falls and your collateral drops near the limit, the protocol sells some of it automatically to repay the loan, usually with a penalty. No one calls you first.
Impermanent loss, worked through
A constant-product pool sells the rising token and buys the falling one. If ETH doubles, the position trails simply holding by about 5.7% before fees.
Depositing into a swap pool isn't the same as holding the two tokens. The pool's formula keeps the product of its two balances constant, so as one token rises, traders buy it from the pool and it ends up holding less of the winner and more of the loser. The shortfall compared with simply holding is called impermanent loss.
Say you deposit 10 ETH and 20,000 USDC while ETH is $2,000, worth $40,000. The product is 10 times 20,000, or 200,000. ETH doubles to $4,000. Traders rebalance the pool until its price matches, which leaves you with about 7.07 ETH and 28,284 USDC, still a product of about 200,000. That is worth $56,569. Had you just held, you would have $60,000. The difference is $3,431, or about 5.7%.
It's called impermanent because if ETH returns to $2,000 the gap disappears. If you withdraw while prices differ, the loss is locked in. The swap fees you earn work against it, so a busy pool can more than make up the difference, while a quiet one may not. The same 5.7% applies if ETH halves instead of doubling, since the effect depends on the size of the price ratio, not its direction.
Health factor and your liquidation price
Health factor is collateral times the liquidation threshold, divided by debt. Below 1.0, liquidation begins, which here means ETH at $2,250.
Lending protocols such as Aave track each loan with a number called the health factor. It is your collateral's value multiplied by its liquidation threshold, divided by what you owe. The threshold is set per asset by the protocol, often around 80% for ether. Above 1.0 the loan is safe. At 1.0 or below, anyone can repay part of your debt and take some of your collateral at a discount.
With 1 ETH worth $3,000 as collateral and an 80% threshold, the protocol counts $2,400 toward the loan. Borrow $1,800 and the health factor is 2,400 divided by 1,800, or 1.33. If ETH slips to $2,700, it becomes 1.20. Your liquidation price is the debt divided by the threshold, so $1,800 divided by 0.8, or $2,250. That is a fall of 25% from today's price.
Two things change the picture over time. Interest adds to the debt, so the liquidation price slowly rises even if nothing else moves. And if you borrow a volatile coin instead of a stablecoin, its price moves your debt as well. Protocol dashboards show the health factor live, and adding collateral or repaying part of the loan raises it at any time.
Key terms
Smart contract
Code on a blockchain that holds funds and follows fixed rules.
Liquidity pool
Tokens deposited for swaps, priced by a formula.
TVL
Total value locked: money deposited in DeFi apps.
Liquidation
Automatic sale of collateral when a loan gets too risky.
Behind the yield on the dashboard
Whether the code is safe. Bugs, hacks and faulty price feeds have all cost users money.
Where a yield comes from. High advertised rates usually mean high risk, or rewards in a token that can fall.
How much is really locked. TVL counts deposits at today's prices, and the same money can be counted in more than one app.
What people get wrong
"Decentralized" doesn't mean risk-free. Code bugs, hacks, faulty price feeds and admin keys have all cost users money.
High advertised yields usually mean high risk, or rewards paid in a token that can lose value.
Why it matters
DeFi is where many tokens get their use, and TVL is one of the main ways to judge whether a chain is being used.
Common questions
Do I need to give my identity to use DeFi?
Most DeFi apps only need a wallet, though some websites that sit in front of them restrict certain countries.
Can I lose my collateral if I can't repay a DeFi loan?
Loans are over-collateralized. If your collateral's value falls too far, it's sold automatically, often with a penalty.
Is DeFi safe?
DeFi carries risks traditional finance doesn't, such as bugs in smart contracts, hacks, price oracles that can be manipulated, and no customer support or deposit insurance to fall back on. Long-running protocols with audits and large deposits have a better record, but none are risk-free.
