Every crypto enthusiast sees prices, market cap, trading volume, and other numbers every day. But what do these figures actually mean, and why should you pay attention to them? In this article, we’ll explain what Market Data is and how these key metrics help you understand what’s really happening with a coin and the market as a whole.
Key Takeaways
- The total cryptocurrency market capitalization exceeds $3.6 trillion, with $2.1 trillion coming from Bitcoin - nearly two-thirds of the entire market.
- USDT’s 24-hour trading volume is over $150 billion, making it the most liquid stablecoin and the primary asset for moving capital across the crypto ecosystem.
What Is Market Data in Cryptocurrency
Market data is a set of key indicators that show the current state of a cryptocurrency - its price, market capitalization, trading volume, circulating supply, and broader market metrics. In simple terms, it’s the “pulse” of a coin. Today, the total crypto market capitalization is around $3.6 trillion, and Bitcoin accounts for about $2.1 trillion of that. In other words, nearly two-thirds of the entire market are centered around BTC - a strong signal of its dominance.
Why Market Data Matters: How Metrics Help Evaluate Crypto Assets?
Market data shows what stage an asset is in. It helps you understand whether a project is growing for real or if the price is just making a short-term jump. Investors use these metrics to decide whether to buy, traders look for possible price moves, and crypto enthusiasts use them to understand what’s happening with a coin and the market. Why it’s important to understand market data?
How Market Data Helps You Assess Crypto Risks
The crypto market is extremely volatile. A price can jump 20-40% in a single day and drop just as quickly. If you only look at the price, you miss the full picture. Market data such as trading volume, liquidity, and wallet activity helps you understand whether the growth is real and sustainable.
How Market Data Can Show If a Token Might Be a Scam
If a token has just launched, its trading volume comes from one unknown exchange, and there are only a few active wallets in the network - that’s a major red flag. Real liquidity is spread across multiple platforms and confirmed by on-chain activity, like with BNB or Tether (USDT).
Tracking Whale Activity Through Market Data
Market data shows not only price movements but also whale behavior. For example, when large wallets move BTC to exchanges, it may signal upcoming selling. When they withdraw tokens to cold wallets or staking, it often indicates long-term confidence.
Using Market Data to Find Promising Projects
Market data helps you spot emerging strong sectors early. An increase in transactions and overall network activity suggests real ecosystem growth. For example, with Ethereum, rising activity across DApps and smart contracts reflects expanding usage and development.
What Is the Price of a Cryptocurrency
The price of a coin shows its current value in fiat money, usually in US dollars. It reflects the balance between supply and demand on the market. What matters is not just the number itself, but the movement: whether the asset is growing steadily or making sharp jumps. For example, after the launch of the TRUMP memecoin linked to Donald Trump, its price jumped more than 300% in just a few days. At the same time, Solana - the blockchain where the token was created - also saw a strong increase and reached its all-time high (ATH).
What Is Market Cap in Crypto and Why It Matters
Market cap (capitalization) is the price of a coin multiplied by the number of coins in circulation. For example, if a token costs $10 and there are 50 million tokens in circulation, its market cap would be $500 million. Market cap, along with other key market data, is easy to track through popular sources like CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin’s market cap is currently around $2.1 trillion; by comparison, Nvidia is at $5.03 trillion and Apple at $3.99 trillion. Market cap shows the size and stability of a project: large assets are much harder to crash, so this metric helps you quickly understand how resilient a coin is in the current market.
Bitcoin Market cap chart - all-time. Source: coinmarketcap.com
What Is FDV in Crypto
FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation) shows how much a project would be worth if all of its tokens were already in circulation. For Bitcoin, FDV is almost the same as its current market cap (≈ $2.2T vs ≈ $2.09T) because nearly all BTC has already been mined. For Solana, the situation is different: with a market cap of around $90B, its FDV is slightly above $100B because part of the SOL supply is not yet released or is locked in staking, while other tokens are reserved for the team and ecosystem funds. The larger the gap between Market Cap and FDV, the higher the potential “sell pressure”: when new tokens enter circulation while demand stays the same, the price can go down.
What Is 24h Volume in Crypto and What Does It Show
The 24-hour volume shows how much trading has been done in the past day - the total value of all buys and sells of a cryptocurrency. For example, USDT has a 24-hour volume of around $150B, which makes it one of the most liquid assets on the market. High trading volume is especially important on decentralized exchanges (DEX) like PancakeSwap and Uniswap, because the higher the volume, the less impact a single trade has on the price.
The chart shows USDT’s 24-hour trading volume - the total value of all buys and sells within a day. Source: coingecko.com
What Is Circulating Supply and How It Affects a Crypto’s Price
Circulating supply is the number of coins or tokens that are currently available on the market and actively traded. Here are two simple examples:
-
Bitcoin (BTC): Almost 19.9 million coins are in circulation out of the maximum 21 million.
-
Ethereum (ETH): Over 120 million ETH are in circulation, with no fixed supply limit, and part of the supply is regularly burned, making the network partially deflationary.
Circulating supply directly affects a coin’s price, market cap, and overall scarcity, which is why it is one of the key metrics for crypto users.
What Are Total Supply and Max Supply?
Total Supply is the total number of coins that have been issued up to this moment.
Max Supply is the maximum number of tokens that can ever exist according to the protocol’s rules.
For example, BNB regularly burns part of its supply, reducing the number of tokens and increasing their scarcity. For NFTs, the supply equals the number of tokens in the collection - for instance, 10,000 items, which makes them limited by design. Solana has a Total Supply of around 613.82 million, while its Max Supply is not capped, as new tokens can be issued according to the protocol.
How to Track Crypto Market Data Securely in Gem Wallet
Market data is not just a set of numbers - it’s a tool that helps you see real market movements. In the self-custodial Gem Wallet, you can track all key metrics easily and securely. Only you control your crypto keys, the wallet is fully open-source, and all market data is updated in real time through CoinGecko.
Gem Wallet supports more than 100 blockchains and over 10 million tokens, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, BNB, and USDT across TRC-20, ERC-20, BEP-20 and other formats. This lets you check the market data of any coin and react instantly: track market cap, monitor Circulating and Total Supply, view price charts by the hour, day, week, month, or long-term periods, quickly open official project websites directly from the wallet, explore extended data, set price alerts for 5%, 10%, or 15% movements, check asset activity, and manage your portfolio without intermediaries.
A simple and secure way to analyze market data for all popular coins - always within reach with Gem Wallet.
