What Is FDV in Crypto? Fully Diluted Valuation, and Why the Gap Should Worry You

Two numbers sit next to each other on every token page, and most people read only one of them. Market cap tells you what a project is worth today. Fully diluted valuation tells you what it would be worth if every token that will ever exist were already trading.

When those two numbers are close together, the token’s supply story is finished. When they are far apart, somebody is holding tokens that are not on the market yet, and one day they will be.

This page explains how to read that gap, because it is one of the few pieces of analysis that takes five minutes and repeatedly saves people from expensive surprises.

The definitions, in plain language Market capitalization is the price of one token multiplied by the number of tokens currently in circulation. It answers: what is the market paying for this project right now?