Market data methodology

Supply, not market capitalisation

The figures on this site measure circulating supply in dollars, sourced from DefiLlama. For an asset pegged to a dollar, supply is the number that carries information. Market capitalisation multiplies that supply by a price which, by design, sits within a fraction of a percent of one.

30-day growth

Growth compares total circulating supply today against total circulating supply roughly 30 days ago, taken from the same historical series. It measures supply, not price.

A 30-day price change on a stablecoin tells you almost nothing, because a stablecoin that moved meaningfully in price has broken. Where the series has a gap, we take the nearest reading at or before the target date, which shortens the window rather than silently comparing against the wrong month.

Traded volume

24-hour traded volume comes from CoinGecko and measures exchange activity. It is not payment volume, and the two should not be read as the same thing. There is no public source for total stablecoin payment volume, and we do not estimate one.

What we count

US dollar pegged assets above 50 million dollars in circulating supply.

We exclude wrapped, bridged and staked representations. Those are claims on supply that is already counted, and including them would count the same dollars twice.

Freshness and failure

Figures refresh every 15 minutes. If a data source fails, the modules show the last successful figures and label themselves delayed. They do not fall back to zero, because a confident zero is worse than an honest gap.

Limitations

Circulating supply is what an issuer has minted, not what is in active use. A large balance sitting on an exchange counts the same as one moving through a payment corridor. Per-chain figures also shift when assets bridge, so a rise on one chain is sometimes a fall on another rather than new issuance.