What is maximum supply in cryptocurrency?
Maximum supply is the total coins a cryptocurrency's rules allow to ever exist. It sets a ceiling, while circulating supply counts coins available now.
Vahe HakobyanEditor-in-chief
Updated Oct 6, 20263 min readFact-checked
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Two other supply figures sit beside it. Circulating supply and total supply show coins in use now and coins held back for later.
What is maximum supply?
A cryptocurrency's maximum supply is the ceiling its code or its governance puts on coin creation. For a capped coin, issuance cannot pass that number. The figure counts the coins the rules permit, not the coins sitting in wallets or on exchanges right now.
How is maximum supply calculated?
Circulating supply counts the coins available now. Total supply adds coins that are locked, reserved, or not yet released. For a capped coin with no burns, maximum supply is total supply plus the issuance still allowed to happen. If the project has burned coins, add those back, because a burn does not lower the ceiling.
Bitcoin's cap comes from its block subsidy and halving schedule. The subsidy pays miners new coins with each block, and each halving cuts that payment until the schedule reaches zero.
How should you read it?
Not every cryptocurrency has a maximum supply. A coin with a constant block reward keeps creating new units, so its money supply is unlimited. Other projects can change a cap through a governance vote. Burning lowers circulating or total supply, but not the maximum.
What it does not tell you
A maximum supply is a rule about creation. It says nothing about how many people want the coin or how the coins are held.
- Demand: a cap does not create buyers.
- Distribution: a few holders may control most of the coins.
- Lost coins: lost keys take coins out of circulation for good.
- Price: creation rules alone do not set a price.
Frequently asked questions
Project documentation and block explorers usually list it. Market data sites show it too, but check which supply figure the label names, because many show circulating supply by default.
It multiplies the current price by a supply figure that assumes the largest allowed number of coins exists. Sites often use maximum supply for a capped coin and total supply for a coin with no cap.
No. Market cap uses circulating supply, so it moves with the price and with coins already issued. Maximum supply is a rule about coins that could exist.
