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
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Trades needed to get back to your target mix.
Coin
Now
Target %
Trade
Today's crypto prices by market cap
How does staking work in crypto?
A 5% staking reward sounds like interest. It isn't quite.
It's paid in the coin itself, often partly from brand-new coins, so what it's worth depends on the price and on how much everyone else is staking too.
What staking pays for
Staked coins back a validator that checks blocks. Rewards come back to stakers, while slashing and unbonding are the main catches.
Proof-of-stake networks such as Ethereum and Solana choose who adds the next block from people who have put coins up as a deposit, called validators. The deposit gives them a reason to behave, because breaking the rules can cost them part of it.
You can run a validator yourself, delegate your coins to one, or stake through an exchange or a staking service. Rewards come from new coins the network issues and from transaction fees.
Rewards are paid in the same coin, so their value rises and falls with its price. Some networks also make you wait to get coins back after you stop staking, and a third-party service can fail or charge fees.
Ways to stake
Running your own validator gives full control but takes technical skill, reliable hardware and, on Ethereum, 32 ETH. Delegating lets you pick a validator and share its rewards while keeping your coins in your wallet on many chains.
Exchanges and liquid staking services do it for you and may give you a token that represents your staked coins. That's convenient, but you add their risks on top of the network's.
Reading a staking rate
An advertised 5% reward is paid in the coin, not in dollars. If the network also issues 4% new coins a year, a staker's share of the network only grows about 1% while non-stakers are diluted.
So compare the reward rate with the issuance rate, and remember the coin's price can move far more than either.
Rewards in coins, results in dollars
Staking adds coins; the price decides what they're worth. With a 30% price fall, 6% of extra coins still ends in a $516 loss.
A staking rate tells you how many more coins you'll have, not what they'll be worth. Take an example of 100 coins bought at $20, so $2,000, staked for a year at 6%. At the end you hold 106 coins. Whether that's a gain depends almost entirely on the price.
If the price stays at $20, the 106 coins are worth $2,120, a $120 gain. If it falls 30% to $14, they're worth $1,484, a loss of $516 despite the rewards. If it rises 30% to $26, they're worth $2,756. The 6% made a $36 difference in the bad case and a $156 difference in the good case, while the price change moved the result by hundreds of dollars.
Fees and taxes shrink the figure further. Exchanges and staking services commonly keep a share of rewards as a commission, and in some countries, including the US, staking rewards can count as income when you receive them, valued at that day's price. Check the commission before you stake and keep a record of each reward's date and value, which matters if the price later falls below what you were taxed on.
How Ethereum staking arrived, step by step
Early Ethereum stakers locked their coins with no way out for about two and a half years, from the Beacon Chain launch to the Shapella upgrade.
Ethereum switched to proof of stake in stages, and the gaps between them shaped how staking works today. The Beacon Chain, a separate proof-of-stake chain, launched on December 1, 2020. People could deposit 32 ETH to become validators, but those deposits had no way back out yet.
On September 15, 2022, the Merge joined the Beacon Chain to the main Ethereum network and ended mining. Ether was now secured entirely by staking, but staked ETH still couldn't be withdrawn. Withdrawals finally opened with the Shanghai and Capella upgrades, often called Shapella, on April 12, 2023, about two and a half years after the first deposits.
That long lock is a big reason liquid staking grew so quickly. Services that handed stakers a tradable token representing their staked ETH let people keep a sellable asset while their deposit was stuck. Today withdrawals work, but they go through a queue, so getting coins back can take from days to weeks when many validators exit at once. Other networks have their own fixed waits, and the Cosmos Hub, for example, uses a 21-day unbonding period.
Key terms
Validator
A participant who stakes coins and checks or proposes blocks.
Delegation
Assigning your stake to a validator without running one.
Slashing
A penalty taking part of a validator's stake.
Unbonding period
The wait between unstaking and getting coins back.
A staking rate is only part of the return
Your return in dollars. Rewards are paid in the coin, so the price decides what they're worth.
The real growth of your share. Compare the reward rate with the rate new coins are issued.
The risks of the service. Exchanges and staking services add their own fees and failure risks.
What people get wrong
A staking rate isn't a guaranteed return in dollars. If the coin's price falls, you can lose money while earning rewards.
Staking rewards often come partly from new coins being created, which dilutes holders who don't stake.
Why it matters
It's how many of the largest blockchains are secured, and it's often advertised with a headline rate that leaves out the risks.
Common questions
How does slashing work?
A penalty some networks apply to validators that break the rules or misbehave, taking part of their staked coins. Delegators can be affected too, depending on the network.
Can I stake Bitcoin?
Not natively. Bitcoin uses proof of work, where miners secure the network with computing power instead of staked coins.
Is liquid staking safe?
It adds risks on top of normal staking. The staking token can trade below the value of the coins behind it, especially in a rush to sell, and the service's smart contracts or operators can fail. Large services concentrate a lot of stake, which some see as a risk to the network itself.
How long does it take to unstake?
It depends on the network and the service. The Cosmos Hub uses a fixed 21-day unbonding period, while Ethereum withdrawals go through a queue that can take days or weeks when many validators exit. Exchanges may set their own rules on top.
