Total crypto market cap (TOTAL, TOTAL2, TOTAL3)

Data aggregators add up the market capitalisation, price times circulating supply, of thousands of tracked tokens to produce a single figure for the whole crypto market. Charting platforms publish it as an index, commonly labelled TOTAL. TOTAL2 removes bitcoin to show the value of everything else, and TOTAL3 removes bitcoin and ether, which makes it a rough gauge of the broader altcoin market. Some versions also exclude stablecoins.

Traders chart these indices like any asset, drawing trend lines and levels to judge the state of the overall market. The ratio between them gives dominance figures: when TOTAL3 rises faster than TOTAL, smaller altcoins are outperforming, a pattern associated with altcoin seasons.

The headline number overstates how much money is actually in crypto. Market cap multiplies the last price by all circulating tokens, many of which are illiquid or locked, and aggregators differ in which tokens they include. Changes in coverage or stablecoin issuance can move the total without any change in prices.