Guide
How to Read Crypto Market Data
A plain guide to the figures on every crypto price page: price, percentage change, market cap, volume, supply and charts, with the mistakes people most often make.
Price and the quote currency
A crypto price is always quoted against something else. On Tickerbook that is the US dollar, so BTC at 60,000 means one bitcoin trades for about 60,000 dollars across the exchanges our data source follows.
The figure is an aggregate. Each exchange has its own order book, and the aggregate smooths out the small differences between them. If you are about to trade, the quote on your exchange is the one that matters.
Percentage change windows
The 1h, 24h and 7d columns compare the current price with the price at the start of each window. They are rolling: 24h means the last 24 hours, not since midnight.
A large move in a short window on an asset with low volume is less meaningful than the same move on an asset that trades billions a day. Read change and volume together.
Market capitalisation
Market cap is price multiplied by circulating supply. It is the standard way to rank assets by size, and it explains why an asset with a low unit price can still be one of the largest.
Market cap is not money invested and not the amount you could sell everything for. Selling a large share of any asset would push its price down long before the total was reached.
Trading volume
Volume is the dollar value traded in the last 24 hours on the exchanges the data source tracks. It is a rough measure of activity and liquidity.
Reported volume is only as good as the exchanges that report it. Our data source weights and filters venues, but treat volume as an indicator rather than an exact count.
Circulating, total and maximum supply
Circulating supply is what is available to trade today. Total supply adds coins that exist but are locked or reserved. Maximum supply is the protocol's hard cap, if there is one.
When circulating supply is far below maximum supply, future issuance or unlocks can add selling pressure. When there is no cap, supply grows indefinitely at whatever rate the protocol sets.
Reading the charts
Our charts plot the US dollar price over the range you pick, from 24 hours to one year. Shorter ranges use more frequent data points, so they show more detail but also more noise.
Every chart here starts its vertical axis near the lowest price in the range rather than at zero, which makes moves look larger than they would on a zero-based scale. Check the actual figures in the readout above the chart.
What market data cannot tell you
Price data describes what has happened. It does not tell you what will happen, whether a project is sound or whether an asset suits you.
Crypto markets trade around the clock, can move sharply in minutes and have far less investor protection than regulated markets. Nothing on this site is a recommendation.
24 terms
Glossary
- All-time high
- The highest price an asset has traded at in the data source's history. The coin pages show how far today's price is below it.
- Altcoin
- Any crypto asset other than Bitcoin. The word says nothing about size or quality.
- Bid and ask
- The best price a buyer is offering (bid) and the best price a seller is asking (ask) on an exchange at a given moment.
- Block
- A batch of transactions added to a blockchain at once. Block interval is the typical time between blocks.
- Candlestick
- A chart mark showing the open, high, low and close for one period. A filled body usually means the price fell during the period.
- Circulating supply
- The number of coins that are publicly available and trading. Market cap is calculated from this figure.
- Dominance
- One asset's market cap as a share of the total crypto market cap, most often quoted for Bitcoin.
- Exchange
- A venue where crypto assets are bought and sold. Each has its own prices, fees and rules.
- Fully diluted valuation
- Price multiplied by maximum supply, or total supply where there is no maximum. It shows the market cap if every coin were in circulation.
- Halving
- A scheduled cut in the reward for producing new blocks, used by Bitcoin and Litecoin to slow new supply.
- Liquidity
- How easily an asset can be traded without moving its price. Volume and order book depth are rough guides.
- Market capitalisation
- Price multiplied by circulating supply. Used to rank assets by size.
- Maximum supply
- The hard cap on coins that can ever exist, if the protocol has one.
- Order book
- The list of open buy and sell orders on an exchange at each price level.
- Peg
- The fixed value a stablecoin aims to hold, usually one US dollar.
- Proof of stake
- A way of securing a blockchain in which validators lock up coins and risk losing them if they misbehave.
- Proof of work
- A way of securing a blockchain in which miners spend computing power to add blocks.
- Slippage
- The difference between the price you expected and the price a trade actually fills at, common in thin markets.
- Spread
- The gap between the bid and the ask. Narrow spreads usually mean a liquid market.
- Stablecoin
- A token designed to track the value of another asset, most often the US dollar.
- Ticker
- The short code for an asset, such as BTC or ETH. Different assets can share a ticker, so check the full name.
- Total supply
- Coins that exist now, minus any that have been verifiably destroyed. Includes coins not yet circulating.
- Trading volume
- The dollar value of an asset traded over a period, usually the last 24 hours.
- Volatility
- How much and how fast a price moves. Crypto assets are typically far more volatile than shares or currencies.
Reviewed on 21 October 2026. Found something unclear or wrong? Tell us.