How our market data works

Every minute we read the deepest pools of each coin on decentralised exchanges: Uniswap, PancakeSwap, Aerodrome, Velodrome, SushiSwap, QuickSwap and others on 14 EVM chains, Orca on Solana, the XRP Ledger’s own exchange and SunSwap on Tron. Each pool gives a price against the chain’s main coin or a stablecoin.

A coin’s price is the median of its pools, weighted by how much each holds. Pools holding under $25,000 are ignored, pools more than 3% from the rest are left out, and a coin needs $100,000 of depth in total (and $1 million if a single pool prices it) before we show a price at all. US dollars are anchored on the main stablecoins, each priced against the others, so a stablecoin losing its peg shows as that stablecoin below $1, not as every price moving.

Some coins with no pools of their own trade as tokens bridged to other chains; we use those only after checking the token on-chain, and only when it holds real depth.

Supply is read from each coin’s chain every hour: Bitcoin and Litecoin from their issuance schedules at the current block, Solana from the network’s own supply figure, tokens from their contract’s total supply less tokens sent to burn addresses, and USDT and USDC summed across the chains where their issuers create them.

On-chain total supply includes tokens held in treasuries and vesting contracts, which are not yet in circulation. So a supply is verified only once it matches the circulating supply, or once we have accounted for those wallets. A market cap (price × supply) is shown only on a verified supply.

Volume is every swap in the pools we follow, counted on its stablecoin or native-coin side at our own price, summed by the hour. It is the volume of the deepest on-chain pools, not of every trade anywhere, so it reads lower than figures that include centralised exchanges.

We read every pool the exchanges create for a token against a chain’s main coin or a stablecoin, follow it for a day, and list it once it holds about $50,000. Most new pools never do. A token’s symbol is chosen by whoever deploys it, so two tokens can share one: always check the contract address.

Each coin gets four numbers from 0 to 100, recomputed every five minutes from the data above, each with the reasons that moved it:

• Trend: the largest of its 1-hour, 4-hour and 24-hour moves, measured against its own typical move over the past week. 50 is flat; higher is rising, lower is falling.
• Activity: trading volume and large transfers against their usual week.
• Liquidity: how much sits in the pools we follow, lowered when it drains quickly.
• Risk: how easily the price could be pushed or collapse: volatility, thin liquidity for the coin’s size, few pools, a supply we could not verify, liquidity leaving.

The screener groups coins by these numbers and a few facts behind them: a strong rise or fall, unusual activity, liquidity leaving, a price above its week’s high or below its low, a stablecoin off its peg. A signal rule can tell you when a coin you follow enters one.

Scores describe what is happening. They are not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold anything, and a high trend score is exactly where pumps show up first. Every score is kept hourly with the version of the method that made it, so it can be tested against what happened next.

Coins that trade only on centralised exchanges have no on-chain price, and show none. Our price history starts when we started recording it, so long charts fill in over time. Pools can be manipulated for short periods; depth weighting, the outlier rule and the depth minimums make that expensive, not impossible.