Learn·Markets
Market cap, FDV and supply: three sizes of one subnet
Supply counts α without pricing it; market cap prices what circulates at the chain's moving price; FDV prices the 21 million α every subnet could one day have.
Published 2026-09-17
Supply is a count
Supply is every α that exists for the subnet: α in pool + α staked out. Staked α is everything outside the pool — delegated to validators, the owner's own and locked α included — so supply counts tokens and attaches no price.
Burned α is still inside that count, because the chain's α-out counter still carries it. The separate AlphaBurned counter records α destroyed for good and is a lower bound: it covers burns on one path only.
Market cap prices what circulates
Market cap is EMA price × (α in pool + α staked out − α burned): every α that circulates, at the chain's moving price. Burned α comes off because it cannot come back — which is why supply × price sits above market cap on burn-heavy subnets without either figure being wrong.
The price is the moving price, not spot. Spot is one tick of the pool ratio; the moving price is the figure the chain itself uses for emission and for the deregistration queue. A moving price of 0 is the chain's "not applicable", so the market cap shows a dash rather than 0 τ. Root has no moving price and nothing swaps against its "α in pool", so its figure is spot price × α staked out.
FDV prices the cap
Every subnet shares the same maximum supply of 21,000,000 α. FDV is EMA price × 21,000,000: the same price against the same ceiling for every subnet, which makes it a ranking by moving price alone. It is not shown for root.
The gap between FDV and market cap is α that does not exist yet. The chain mints α every block, so a young subnet's supply sits far below the cap; the two converge only as emission accumulates.
Where the figures live
The screener carries MCap and FDV in the Size & flow group and Supply α, Staked α, α in pool and Burned α under Supply; the Investor preset switches them on together, and Compare shows market cap with its display-only USD beside it. Every formula above is on the Definitions page with its chain source.
One function computes market cap for the screener, the subnet page and Compare, so they cannot disagree. Where a figure differs from another site's, the cause is almost always which α is counted and at which price — a separate page covers that.
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The moving price
Beside the spot price the chain keeps its own exponential moving average — the figure it uses for emission and for the deregistration queue, and the one Taosis values a subnet at.
Why figures differ between explorers
Same chain, different definitions: which price, which supply, which window, and whether a blank is allowed to stay blank.
How the α price works
It is a ratio between two chain values, not an order book — which is why the price can move with no trade at all.