In the stock world, the number of shares changes slowly and is disclosed clearly. In crypto, supply is often the trickiest part of the whole picture, and it is where many people quietly lose money without understanding why. A coin can look reasonably valued today and yet be sitting on a flood of new coins waiting to be released, which changes everything. To see this clearly, we need three ideas about supply and one more number that ties them together.
Circulating supply: what exists right now
Circulating supply is the number of coins that are actually out in the world today, available to be traded and held. This is the number used to calculate the market cap you see on most quotes: price times circulating supply. It reflects the reality of the moment, the coins that genuinely exist and change hands.
Total and maximum supply: what could exist
Here is where crypto differs sharply from stocks. Many coins are designed to release more units over time, on a schedule set in advance. Total supply is how many coins exist right now including ones locked up and not yet circulating. Maximum supply is the hard ceiling, the most that will ever exist under the coin's rules. Some coins have a fixed maximum, others have no cap at all and keep issuing indefinitely.
The gap between circulating supply and maximum supply is the crucial thing to notice. If only a small slice of the eventual coins is circulating today, a great many more are due to arrive later. Those future coins can dilute the value of the ones you hold, in the same way that printing more of anything tends to make each unit worth less.
Fully diluted valuation
This brings us to fully diluted valuation, or FDV. While market cap is price times circulating supply, FDV is price times the maximum supply. In other words, FDV asks: what would this coin's total value be if every coin that will ever exist were already in circulation, at today's price? It is the market cap of the coin's imagined future, once all the supply has arrived.
Comparing market cap and FDV is one of the most revealing quick checks in crypto. If they are close, most of the coins already exist and there is little future dilution to worry about. If FDV towers over market cap, a large amount of supply is still waiting in the wings, and today's tidy-looking market cap may be masking a much heavier future.
Token unlocks: the supply calendar
Those future coins do not usually appear all at once. They are released gradually on a schedule, often to early investors, the team, and various reserves. These scheduled releases are called token unlocks. When a large unlock happens, a fresh batch of coins hits the market, and the people receiving them may sell, adding selling pressure that can push the price down around the unlock date.
This is why experienced people pay attention to a coin's unlock schedule. A big unlock approaching is a known headwind. It does not guarantee the price falls, but it adds supply into the market at a specific time, and supply arriving is rarely good for the price of what you already hold.
Putting supply to work
When you size up a coin, do not stop at the price or even the market cap. Ask how much supply is circulating versus how much will eventually exist. Compare the market cap to the FDV to see how much dilution is coming. And glance at whether large unlocks are on the horizon. These supply questions are among the most important and most overlooked in all of crypto, and asking them will save you from mistaking a coin with a heavy future for a bargain.