Market capitalization is the total value of an asset, calculated by multiplying its current price by the number of units in circulation. A stock priced at $50 with 200 million shares outstanding has a market cap of $10 billion. The same formula works for cryptocurrency, using coin price and circulating supply.
How to calculate market cap
- Enter the current price per share or coin.
- Enter the circulating supply, or shares outstanding for a stock.
- Read the result — it updates as you type.
Shares outstanding appears on the cover page of a company’s latest 10-Q or 10-K. Circulating supply for a cryptocurrency comes from a data aggregator or the project’s block explorer. Both inputs must use the same currency, as the calculator multiplies rather than converts.
What is a good market cap?
There is no single good figure — market cap measures size, not quality. These are the standard US equity bands:
| Tier | Market cap | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Mega cap | $200B+ | Index heavyweights, deep liquidity |
| Large cap | $10B – $200B | Established, widely covered |
| Mid cap | $2B – $10B | Growing, more volatile |
| Small cap | $300M – $2B | Thin coverage, wider spreads |
| Micro cap | Under $300M | Illiquid, easily moved |
Market cap vs fully diluted valuation
Market cap uses circulating supply. Fully diluted valuation (FDV) uses maximum supply — what the asset would be worth if every unit that will ever exist were trading today.
A large gap between the two means most of the supply is still locked and scheduled to unlock later. That gap is a calendar of future selling pressure, which is why a token can fall for months while the project itself looks unchanged.
Market cap vs enterprise value
Market cap values only the equity. Enterprise value includes the balance sheet, so it reflects what buying the entire business would actually cost.
Enterprise Value = Market Cap + Total Debt − Cash
Two companies can share the same market cap while one holds $5 billion in cash and the other carries $5 billion in debt. Use market cap to value the equity; use enterprise value to compare operating businesses.
Why share price alone is misleading
Share price depends on how many units the asset was divided into, which is an arbitrary choice. A company worth $10 billion split into 100 million shares trades at $100; split into 5 billion shares it trades at $2. Nothing about the business differs.
| Asset | Price | Supply | Market cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Token A | $1.00 | 100,000,000 | $100,000,000 |
| Token B | $0.25 | 800,000,000 | $200,000,000 |
| Stock C | $412.00 | 15,000,000 | $6,180,000,000 |
Token B costs a quarter of Token A and is worth twice as much. This is also why very cheap coins rarely reach round-number prices: Shiba Inu has roughly 589 trillion tokens circulating, so $1 per token would imply a market cap larger than every stock market on earth combined.