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Fox Periodical
Glossary

Circulating Supply

Plain-language definition

Circulating supply is the number of coins or tokens that are publicly available and actively trading. It excludes tokens that are locked, reserved, or not yet released, and it is the figure used to calculate market capitalization.

How it works

Circulating supply sits between two other measures. Total supply counts all tokens that currently exist minus any that have been verifiably burned. Maximum supply is the hard cap that will ever exist, if one is defined. Circulating supply can grow over time as locked or unminted tokens are released through emissions, staking rewards or vesting schedules.

Why it matters

Because market cap depends on it, the circulating supply figure directly shapes how large an asset appears. Tokens with a small circulating supply but a large total supply can face future “unlock” pressure as more tokens enter the market, which is an important part of reading a project’s tokenomics.

Example

Bitcoin’s circulating supply rises slowly toward its fixed maximum of 21 million as miners receive block rewards.

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