CoinMarketCap is a listing and price-tracking website that provides market cap rankings, charts, sales volume, snapshots, and other information about cryptocurrencies. ^[1][2][3] In October 2023, CoinMarketCap launched the ChatGPT plugin featuring up-to-date crypto data sourced from the platform.^[37]

CoinMarketCap is one of the most referenced and trusted sources for comparing thousands of crypto assets in the rapidly growing cryptocurrency space by users, institutions, and media. It has over 20,000 different crypto assets tracked across over 500 exchanges globally. CoinMarketCap is commonly cited by major news outlets such as CNBC and Bloomberg.^[4]
CoinMarketCap reaches hundreds of millions of users annually through its price-tracking website, mobile app, newsletter, blog, social media pages, and annual conference. In 2021, CoinMarketCap registered 13.2 billion overall visits to its website. As of June 2022, the website grew to over 340 million monthly visits and had 350,000+ subscribers on its YouTube channel.^[4][5]

Overview

Since its launch in 2013, CoinMarketCap has become one of the most popular websites in the cryptocurrency space, being one of the most visited sites and a prominent source of cryptocurrency market data. It gathers information from trusted global exchanges, such as price, trading volume, market capitalization, and circulating supply, and then displays it in a timely, accurate, and easy-to-interpret way.^[14]

The platform has numerous tools available to users that can help them comprehend the cryptocurrency market. These tools include the Blockchain Explorer, Crypto Price Alert, Currency Converter, and Global Charts. CoinMarketCap focuses on bringing transparency and accountability to market data aggregation from exchanges and cryptocurrency networks through its Data Accountability and Transparency Alliance.^[6]

History

Coinmarketcap was founded by Brandon Chez in May 2013 with its mission to make crypto discoverable and efficient globally by empowering retail users with unbiased, high-quality, and accurate information for drawing their own informed conclusions.^[6]

In May 2018, CoinMarketCap released its first iOS app, allowing users to analyze real-time data by name, 24-hour price, percentage change, ranking in the coin market capitalization, and other factors. In April 2019, it also launched its android app version.^[7][8]

In 2019, The Capital, CoinMarketCap’s annual conference was launched. The event is designed by and for, the ever-growing cryptocurrency community. The inaugural event took place in Singapore on November 12–13, 2019. ^[9]

In April 2020, CoinMarketCap was acquired by Binance, one of the largest global crypto exchange platforms though it continued to run as an independent entity. Through the acquisition, CoinMarketCap plans to tap into Binance's extensive resources to acquire more in-depth data for projects, reduce information asymmetry in the crypto industry, and bring higher-quality data to its hundreds of millions of users.^[10]
Speaking with Coindesk about the acquisition, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said:

CoinMarketCap has more users than any other product in the crypto space. Even though their money generation mechanism is not as strong as Binance, they do have the users – it’s a very valuable platform and I think we can help grow it further.^[11]

In June 2021, Coinmarketcap launched its own podcast — CoinMarketRecap on Apple Podcasts and Spotify with the aim of breaking down weekly crypto news in a fun and accessible way.^[12]

In May 2022, The Capital hosted its first virtual conference in the Metaverse with the theme "Time to Ship".^[13]

Features

The features that can be explored on Coinmarketcap include:

Crypto Price Alert

The Crypto Price Alert feature allows users to customize the price of the specific cryptocurrency they are waiting to reach. Users will receive a prompt notification when their target pricing is met.^[23]

Watchlist

CMC also has a watchlist feature associated with users' CMC accounts that let them star their favorite crypto assets for easy performance monitoring. Users can also create a watchlist of their preferred coins on the mobile app as well. The watchlist feature also allows users to track their crypto portfolio with the newest prices from tokens, coins as well as altcoins.^[24]

Crypto Exchanges

CMC offers rankings of cryptocurrency exchanges in addition to rankings of crypto assets to aid users in choosing trusted exchanges. CoinMarketCap ranks and scores exchanges based on traffic, liquidity, trading volumes, and confidence in the legitimacy of trading volumes reported. On the website, there are more than 500 cryptocurrency exchanges which are categorized into Spot exchanges, derivatives exchanges, and decentralized exchanges. Some of the top exchanges include Binance, Coinbase Exchange, Kraken, FTX, and Gate.io.^[25]

CMC Portfolio

The CoinMarketCap Portfolio enables users to track all of their crypto holdings even though they are purchased from different exchanges. For instance, BTC purchased from Coinbase, BNB bought from Binance, and ETH bought from FTX by a user can all be tracked in one portfolio. Multiple portfolio creation is also available on the desktop site.
The CoinMarketCap Portfolio tool allows users to input their crypto investment records, similar to providing them with a nice bookkeeping tool to keep all their investments in one place. The CMC Portfolio also helps users analyze their investment value, profit, and loss.^[28]

CMC Headlines

Coinmarketcap Headlines is an aggregator of all of the headlines about cryptocurrency and blockchain that users could need, in one place on CMC. Beyond stories from the top crypto news outlets such as Coindesk and Cointelegraph, CMC Headlines also contains Signals, which offer news directly from a project or crypto protocol itself.^[24]

CMC Alexandria

CoinMarketCap Alexandria is a crypto and blockchain encyclopedia where users can add to their knowledge and get answers to questions. Users can access articles covering topics from DeFi, NFTs, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Altcoin, and Metaverse. The contents of CMC Alexandria are broken down into several sections:

• Crypto Basics
• How-To Guides
• Tech Deep Dives
• Trading Analysis
• Market Musings.

CMC Alexandria publishes between 50-70 articles weekly.^[26]

Products

CoinMarketCap Plugin for ChatGPT

On October 11, 2023, the CoinMarketCap team announced the launch of the CoinMarketCap Plugin for ChatGPT. To get started with the CoinMarketCap Plugin on ChatGPT, users need to sign in to their ChatGPT account, enable the CoinMarketCap Plugin (GPT-4), and enter their prompts or questions.^[39][40]

The LLM can produce answers to a range of questions, from simple ones like "What is the correlation between Bitcoin and Ethereum in 2023?" to more complex queries regarding the correlation between variations in token distribution models (ICO/IDO/launchpads, etc.) and observed price volatility. With the integration, ChatGPT utilizes prompts directly sourced from CoinMarketCap, incorporating real-time data such as listings, top gainers and losers, and the latest blockchain statistics. The tool is compatible with both desktop and mobile platforms.^[4]

David Salamon, CoinMarketCap’s Director of Product, commented:

“We’re very proud of what we’re delivering with the CoinMarketCap plugin for ChatGPT. Combining AI with a real-time, comprehensive data source like CoinMarketCap will transform the way people do research. It’s like giving every crypto investor their own personal Crypto Analyst. This is v1, there’s a lot more to come and we’re looking forward to getting feedback from our community. It’s another step forward on our mission to organize the world’s crypto intelligence & make it easily accessible to all”.^[38]

CMC Blockchain Explorer

CMC Blockchain Explorer is a blockchain search engine that enables users to explore all previous blockchain transactions, the current network hash rate, transaction growth, and activity on blockchain addresses, among other important information. CMC Block Explorer provides users with a more engaging way to interact with the data by visually displaying block activity as it is confirmed in real time. The CMC Blockchain Explorer components include:^[22]

• Main Search Bar
• Blockchain Overviews
• Market Data
• Bitcoin Blocks
• Transaction View

CMC Blockchain Explorer now has indices for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, which forms the basis for learning how to navigate and comprehend the data for other blockchains.

Coinmarketcap App

Coinmarketcap App is a go-to mobile app that helps its users stay updated with daily crypto prices, market trends, gains and losses, top coins, as well as newly added cryptocurrencies. Coinmarketcap launched its first IOS app in May 2018, and then its first Andriod app in April 2019.
Users can track over 35,000+ active crypto markets, create multiple watchlists, make crypto conversions, and get price charts, exchange rankings, and market capitalizations all in one place.^[27]

ICO Calendar

CoinMarketCap's ICO calendar allows users to view all of the present initial coin offerings (ICO) that are taking place or will take place, in the crypto space. ICO events on the ICO calendar page make it easier for users to find good new projects to invest in or to understand what’s going on in the crypto world.^[29]

Crypto Converter

The Crypto Converter Calculator enables users to convert prices online between crypto and fiat currencies in real time. Some popular cryptocurrency conversions include BTC to USD, ETH to USD, XRP to AUD, BCH to BRL, LTC to CNY, and XMR to INR.^[30]

Crypto API

The CoinMarketCap API is a collection of high-performance RESTful JSON endpoints designed specifically to meet the demands of application developers, data scientists, and enterprises. Using the CoinMarketCap API, developers can access market cap rankings, charts, price, volume, and exchange data as well as build a cryptocurrency price tracker, trading bot, portfolio manager, and news site in order to enhance their products. The CMC API can be used with clients such as Python, Node.js, Java PHP, Google Sheets, and Excel.^[31]

CoinMarketRecap

CoinMarketRecap is the official podcast of CoinMarketCap that discusses the latest events and developments in the crypto and blockchain space but in a beginner-friendly manner. Since its launch in 2013, the goal is to provide all of the backstories and information, which will help listeners grasp the essence of each story covered on the podcast. As of October 2022, CoinMarketRecap has hosted over 140 episodes.^[32]

The Capital Conference

The Capital Conference is an experiential annual event held by Coinmarketcap designed for the ever-growing cryptocurrency community. The conference brings together stakeholders from all corners of the world and provides them with key opportunities to connect, brainstorm, and solve problems in the community.^[33]

2019

CoinMarketCap’s inaugural conference, The Capital 2019, took place November 12-13, 2019 at the Victoria Theatre in Singapore. It was a live event that featured 80+ speakers and registered more than 1,000 attendees. The two days conference featured a deep dive into pressing crypto topics widely discussed in the crypto industry at that time: liquidity and adoption. Some of the notable speakers included Ivan on Tech, Sunny King proof-of-stake inventor, Jeremy Allaire CEO and Founder of Circle, and Changpeng Zhao CEO of Binance.^[34]

2022 (Time to Ship)

On May 26-27, 2022, The Capital held its first virtual conference in the metaverse which gathered some of the most influential experts in crypto to examine and breakdown the most successful use cases for blockchain adoption in Web3—what has worked so far, and where to go from here. The theme of The Capital 2022 was "Time to Ship" and featured Keynote speakers such as Changpeng Zhao, founder, and CEO at Binance, Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy, Jaynti Kanani, cofounder of Polygon, Sebastien Borget, cofounder and COO at Sandbox, and others.^[35]

Projects deploying Web3 products showcased how they had gained traction, provided development walkthroughs and go-to-market journeys, and shared strategies to help accelerate blockchain adoption. These included The Sandbox, Near Protocol, Polygon, Harmony, Boba Network, Biconomy, Axie Infinity, Yield Guild Games, and Reef, among many others. The virtual event was co-sponsored by industry giants like Trust Wallet, Klaytn, and Apollo X, among others.^[36]

Team

• Brandon Chez - Founder & Ex-CEO^[15]
• Carylyne Chan - CEO^[16]
• Szymon Sollami Delekta - Senior Product Manager^[17]
• Yu Liang - Vice President Of Engineering^[18]
• Stephanie Liu - Lead of Strategy Office^[19]
• Kay E. - Creative Director^[20]
• Christine Kimberly - Team Lead Manager^[21]

Timeline

2013

• May: CoinMarketCap first launches

2016

• May: CoinMarketCap introduces its first public API

2018

• May: CoinMarketCap launches its first iOS app
• August: CoinMarketCap launches its professional API
• December: CoinMarketCap ends the year with 3.6 billion page views

2019

• March: CMC200 & CMC200EX indices are listed on Nasdaq, Bloomberg and Refinitiv
• April: CoinMarketCap launches its first Android app
• May: CoinMarketCap forms the DATA Alliance to promote data transparency and accountability in the crypto space
• June: CoinMarketCap acquires Hashtag Capital
• November: The Capital, CoinMarketCap’s first-ever conference is launched
• November: CoinMarketCap introduces the Liquidity Metric

2020

• April: Binance acquires CoinMarketCap
• June: CoinMarketCap to upgrade Liquidity Score with new details explained in the new methodology
• September: CoinMarketCap launches their educational portal, CMC Alexandria

2021

• April: CoinMarketCap gets a new homepage to revamp with filtering, an ICO calendar, and a new updated portfolio and watchlist feature
• June: CoinMarketCap launches our own podcast, CoinMarketRecap
• June: CoinMarketCap launches Diamonds rewards loyalty program
• December: CoinMarketCap ends 2021 with 13.2 billion page views

2022

• April: CoinMarketCap’s YouTube channel passes 380,000 followers
• May: CoinMarketCap launches online conference, The Capital: Time to Ship
• June: CoinMarketCap page views break over 340 million a month^[4]