Circulating supply is the number of cryptocurrency coins or tokens currently available and actively trading in the market. This metric excludes coins that are locked, reserved, held by the project team, or burned. Circulating supply, when multiplied by the current price, determines market capitalization, which is a key metric for comparing crypto assets. It can increase over time through mining, staking rewards, or scheduled token releases.
Example:
Bitcoin currently has approximately 19.8 million BTC in circulating supply out of its 21 million maximum. Meanwhile, a project might have 500 million tokens in circulating supply while team-held tokens (another 500 million) remain locked and don't count toward this figure.