What Is CoinGecko? An Official Beginner's Guide to CoinGecko

What Is CoinGecko?

CoinGecko is the leading independent Crypto Data Aggregator loved by the crypto community, featuring coin prices, NFTs, and the hottest categories so you can always stay on top of the latest market movements.

Key Takeaways

1. If you haven’t, create a free CoinGecko account now!

2. Discover coins via:

   • Trending Coins (through search bar, or bottom of the page).

   • Categories (some popular ones are Real World Assets, GameFi, Memecoins and chain ecosystems).

   • Recently Added, Large Movers, and more.

3. Look for useful data on the Coin page:

   • Fundamental information, official websites and social media.

   • Price chart, price changes.

   • Where to buy the coin (centralized and decentralized exchanges). 

4. Start adding coins that interest you into your portfolio, so that you can keep track of them in a watchlist. You may create multiple portfolios for different purposes too. Then,

   • Add transactions to track your investment performance.

   • Or add fake transactions in a test portfolio account.  

5. Save price alerts for coins that you think could be a good trade entry or sales position. 

6. Last but not least, collect free Candy on a daily basis, and redeem rewards like ebooks, NFTs, discounts and more!

7. Download our best-in-class Android and iOS app to elevate your CoinGecko experience!

1. CoinGecko.com

Note: if you’re new to DeFi (Decentralized Finance) and NFT, you definitely wanna grab a copy of our best-selling ‘How To DeFi’ and ‘How To NFT’ ebooks to level up! You can get our ebook for free too, more on this later.

The homepage is our most popular page where millions of monthly users visit to view the latest price of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap. Our homepage also provides an overview of the market, with total crypto market cap and 24h trading volume, along with the current trending coins and top gainers.

If you’re wondering why the price here is different from other crypto exchanges, it is because CoinGecko tracks the price from different exchanges to provide a global average price. Crypto exchanges show different prices and sometimes provide very inaccurate odd prices. Hence, the crypto communities love relying on CoinGecko to get the most accurate and unbiased crypto price! To learn more about our methodologies, visit our page here.

Key terms:

• Market Capitalization (Market Cap): The total value of a cryptocurrency. Market Cap = Current Price x Circulating Supply

  • Crypto investors generally use the market cap to determine the valuation of a crypto coin. It is also a common practice to compare the market cap of two similar coins to determine the potential growth of a smaller coin.

  • Tip: Use our Compare tool to help you compare market data for different coins. Here’s an example for comparing the Market Cap of a few Layer 1 coins under the Smart Contract Platforms category. All else being equal, one might say that a coin with a lower market cap has more room to grow when compared to another coin with a higher market cap. 

• 24h Volume: the measure of a cryptocurrency trading volume across all tracked exchanges in the last 24 hours.

We will cover more key crypto terms in the next section!

Pro Tips: By default, the crypto price table is sorted based on the descending order of market cap value. Pro geckos love to sort between 1h, 24h, 7d price changes, to observe which of the top 100 coins experienced the largest gain or loss recently. Users may do the same for coins in different market cap ranges. 

When you try to sort the table, it will only sort the Coins that are available on that particular page. Take this as an example: if you’re on Page 2, no matter which column you click to sort order, you will only see Coins that are ranked between 101st - 200th market cap, and will not see large-cap coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum. This is a feature enjoyed by the Pros to identify ‘low cap gems’ that hiked or dipped (read: discount) in price recently. 

The tips above are also applicable to other tables on the CoinGecko site, such as Categories as a whole, or for coins within a specific category page like Metaverse.

Search on CoinGecko

Still unsure where to begin? The Search Bar could be your best friend to identify the current trending coins, NFTs, and categories:

Beyond what’s trending, if you have a specific token in mind, you’ll also be able to see additional details, such as articles, categories, and even GeckoTerminal charts, with all information at your fingertips. 

2. Coin Pages

The coin page is where you get all the information you need to research a crypto project. 

Coin Statistics: How Is the Coin Performing?

On the left, you can view all the stats related to the coin – as well as your portfolio performance. This section includes price and market data, such as the coin’s Market Cap, Circulating Supply, 24h Trading Volume, and more.

Note: the information above is also available via tooltip on the Coin page. 

Pro Tips: Pro geckos sometimes compare the ratios listed above between 2 or more coins, to determine which coin is relatively under- or over-valued

How Can I Use the Supply Information?

The Circulating/Max supply ratio may allow us to get a quick idea of whether a coin will undergo high inflation later. If a coin’s Circulating Supply number is very close to its Max Supply, the coin may have limited emission (from locked to Circulating Supply), and less exposure to sales pressure (when large holders sell their locked & vested coins for profit). It is vital to look at the tokenomics of a project, to learn whether it is more VC/owner oriented or community oriented, as well as its vesting/unlock schedule – when the locked coins by early investors will be released into circulating supply (open up for public trades). 

Why Is Certain Data Not Available on a Coin Page?

You may not be able to view certain information like Total Value Locked (TVL), because these are only applicable to DeFi protocols like DEX (decentralized exchanges), yield farming, and lending protocols.

If you’re wondering why some coins do not have market capitalization data, this is because such information is left blank by default, and will only be approved for display once our team has conducted certain due diligence.

If you have more questions about the data, feel free to take a look at our Methodologies, FAQ, and Help Center page.

Coin Info: Everything You Need to Research a Project

Below that, you’ll find information related to the project, such as:

• Official websites: Usually the main source where you can learn more about the project, such as their roadmap, tokenomics, team, official social links, documentation, and more. 

• Social media links: You should visit their Twitter, Discord, Telegram, and Reddit to learn more about the project team and their community, and gauge whether this is a community you’d like to be a part of! Feel free to drop all your questions there.

• Blockchain explorer*

• Contract: 1 click access to add a token contract into your MetaMask wallet. 

• Category tags: This is where you can easily find other similar coins that fall under the same category. 

*But Sir? If you don’t know what a MetaMask contract is, and are not familiar with DeFi, fret not! Our team authored the first & best-selling ‘How To DeFi’ books for beginners like you! https://landing.coingecko.com/how-to-defi/  ← you can get this eBook by signing up for an account and claiming it through Candy Rewards! More on this below.

Some key actions that you can do here:

(A) Save Price Alert for a coin to notify you with a web browser or mobile app notifications by clicking on the Bell icon. Pro geckos use this to alert them for key metrics such as liquidation thresholds.

(B) Add a coin into Portfolio by clicking the Star button, so that you can keep track of all your coins of interest in one place.

Tip: you may create multiple portfolios for different purposes, such as general watchlist, long-term hodl investment, memecoin, or ROI simulation (with fake transactions). 

Charts and Additional Information

On the right side of the screen, you’ll see the price chart for your selected cryptocurrency. You can toggle between historical price and market cap, and even view TradingView charts for your chosen cryptocurrency. 

Here are some tabs that you find above the chart:

1. Overview: By default, this is set to the coin’s price chart over 24 hours.

2. Markets: Full list of exchanges that trade the coin.

3. News: Latest news about the coin from CoinGecko and the larger crypto space.

4. Similar Coins: Users can also view other tokens by clicking on this tab.

5. Historical Data: View and export historical price data.

There is also the option to convert the token to the currency of your choice on the left, along with additional historical data about the coin, such as its all-time high and low.

You may switch between different dates on the price chart to view the price movements over specific time frames.

Beneath the chart is a very handy table to let you know how the coin price performed in the past 1 hour, 24 hours, and up to 1 year. ← another Gecko’s screenshot favourite!

Why Show BTC and ETH on the Price Chart? 

Some pro geckos love to compare a coin’s price movement against BTC and ETH, with many experienced traders moving their holdings between BTC, ETH, and altcoins to adjust their trading strategy across different market cycles. 

Example below: by plotting ETH (purple line) on the chart, it helps users to understand whether SOL performed better or worse than ETH in the past year. 

Markets: What Are the Most Popular Exchanges?

Below you will be able to find out: which exchange allows you to trade the coin, at what price point, and which market pair (e.g. SOL/USDT = buy SOL with USDT) is available.  You can also sort this market data by Spot, Perpetuals, and Futures.

Pro Tips: Pro geckos sometimes use this section to check whether a coin is listed on major exchanges like Binance. If not, the coin may have a high growth potential to be adopted by more traders later. On the flip side, it is also common for a coin to experience high sales pressure (and the price goes down) after being listed on a famous exchange.

3. Explore the Crypto Space

Looking for more ideas on how to discover new tokens? Read on.

Categories: Find the Latest Narratives

Find out the full list of coins under certain hot categories like World Liberty Finance Portfolio, Meme, GameFi, and more! You’ll be able to see at a glance what narratives are trending (at time of writing, there’s a surge of interest in AI Agents, with Terminal of Truths trending).

We’ve also made it easy to sort categories. You can now sort categories by market cap, 24h volume, 24h gainers, 24h losers, and trending.

For individual categories, you’ll be able to further customize your views and add filters, such as selecting specific chains, market cap, 24h trading volume, and 24h price changes. With these, you’ll be able to monitor the market based on your preferences.

We’ve also added additional insights for larger parent categories, like Meme, which houses a wide variety of subcategories like dog-themed memecoins, Solana memecoins, and more.

Below, there are also charts of these subcategories’ performance over time, which track the percentage gains and losses of market capitalization across a set time period. 

Highlights

With Highlights, users can track and discover the most interesting cryptocurrencies based on market and CoinGecko activity. Some of the most interesting information on this page includes Trending Coins, Top Gainers, and Top Losers. 

By clicking into the individual cards, you can view the largest price gainers and losers, filtered by market cap rank and selected timeframes.

Exchanges

If you’re already using a (centralized or decentralized) crypto exchange or are considering using a new exchange, you can find out which coins are available for trading in the specific exchange, its liquidity, and trust score. 

In each exchange’s page, you’ll be able to find more details around the exchange, such as its volume by trading pair, trading volume by cryptocurrency, liquidity, and its security audits.

Pro Tips: If a user is undecided between 2 exchanges to trade a coin, pro geckos would go with the one with higher liquidity or trust score.

4. NFTs

CoinGecko also has a section dedicated to NFTs, tracking the floor price, market cap, 24h trading volume and 24h sales. You can filter by chains, view trending NFTs, and also check out the Top NFTs Dominance.

If you click on the View more link beside Top NFTs Dominance, you’ll be able to access the Top NFT Collections Dominance Chart, as well as the Live NFT heatmap, which shows the current market share for top NFT collections. 

5. Portfolio: Monitor Your Holdings

Other than using it to record your actual investment across centralized exchanges and DeFi, you may also use your portfolio as a customized Watchlist. That being said, you don’t have to put in real money to start your crypto investment learning & research journey!  Some users add ‘virtual’ transactions to simulate potential Profit and Loss on certain coins. 

Tips: You can create multiple portfolios for different purposes! And don’t forget to sync your portfolio and price alert across the web and mobile app.

6. Candy Rewards

While anyone can access all the price and market data on our website, here are some benefits that geckos love by signing a FREE account with us.

Claim Free Candy for Rewards

Sign up for your free account now before missing out on more free candies & rewards like ebooks, NFTs, discounts, and more!

Tips: By collecting 800 candies (hint: you can get 310 candies/week by collecting it daily), you can get yourself a free How To DeFi (Beginner) ebook that is worth $19.99+ on Amazon. You can also get discount vouchers for products like Ellipal cold wallets, or VPN providers.

7. What's Next?

Here’s what you can do:

1. Subscribe to our daily newsletter, and join over 100,000s Geckos! 

2. Learn from our crypto guides and analysis on CoinGecko Learn.

3. Read our quarterly report and other research to learn about recent trends.

4. Read the latest news on our site. You may do so with our Mobile App too!

5. Join our Premium plan to be in the same group chat with our in-house analysts. 

6. Follow us on Twitter, Telegram, Discord, Instagram, and YouTube.

7. We wanna learn from you too, if you have any feedback to improve CoinGecko products, just leave us a message here. 

If you find this article helpful, do check out our video guide on how to use CoinGecko App like a pro!