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Methodology

Where every number comes from and what we calculate ourselves.

Every figure on the terminal comes from a named source and is shown as that source published it. This page sets out the rules that apply everywhere, what we calculate ourselves, how platform scores and Alpha AI work, and then lists each dashboard with the feeds behind it.

The rules

  • Read from the source: Every live figure comes from the exchange or data provider that publishes it: Coinglass, CoinGecko, Polymarket, DefiLlama, Coin Metrics, alternative.me and the exchanges' own public feeds. Coinglass data is read through its commercial API under licence. Most requests pass through our own proxy, which holds each answer for a few minutes so that every visitor sees the same figure. The panel shows the time the figure was read.
  • Reported figures are shown as published: A price, a funding rate, an open-interest total or an ETF flow is displayed as the source reports it, with the unit stated. We do not smooth, revise or adjust reported data.
  • We do not estimate market figures: Where a source publishes an estimate rather than a measurement, such as Coinglass's liquidation map, which places leveraged positions from open interest and price, the panel says what the model is built from, and the dashboard list below names the feed it comes from.
  • Scheduled data is dated: The news wires are read on a schedule, not live. If a live feed does not answer, a panel may fall back to the last saved capture of it. In both cases the panel shows the time of the data.
  • Missing is shown as missing: When a source does not answer, the panel says so. We never substitute a stale or invented number for one the feed did not provide.
  • All times are UTC: Live panels refresh on their own schedule and state the delay where one applies.

What we calculate ourselves

Some figures are arithmetic on reported data. The formula is stated on the dashboard, and anyone with the same inputs can reproduce the result.

  • Funding APR: The reported rate per funding period, multiplied out to a year. It assumes the rate holds, which it never does.
  • Mayer Multiple: The Bitcoin price divided by its 200-day simple moving average, from Coin Metrics daily prices.
  • MVRV Z-Score: Market value minus realised value, divided by the standard deviation of market value up to that date, from Coin Metrics.
  • DeFi pool trust scores: A score out of 100 from six measured components: the pool's size, how long the pool and its protocol have run, whether an audit is on record, the size of the chain it settles on, whether the yield looks revenue-backed, and exposure to impermanent loss. Ceilings then apply for facts that should hold a score down outright, such as an APY over 100% or no audit. The score is shown with a plain tier: Strong from 75, Fair from 55, Weak from 35, Poor below that. A pool we have no record for gets no score, not a low one. A trust score is our own sum of what can be measured; it is not a credit rating.
  • DEX risk flags: Fixed thresholds on what the pool feed reports, such as liquidity under $50K, a pool less than a day old, or fewer than 50 wallets trading in 24 hours. The flags do not read the token's contract or its holder list.

Platform scores

Exchanges in our crypto exchange ranking, and any platform featured in our research, carry a score out of 10. The score is the weighted average of five checks. We mark each one out of 10 from public documents: the regulator's register, the platform's proof-of-reserves reports, its fee schedule and its own documentation.

  • Security and solvency, 30%: Proof of reserves, a user protection fund, and the five-year record of hacks, insolvencies, breaches and regulator actions.
  • Regulation and accountability, 25%: Licences found on the regulator's own register and in use, and whether you know which company you deal with.
  • Liquidity, 20%: 24-hour spot trading volume and the depth of the BTC perpetual order book.
  • Fees, 15%: Entry-tier maker and taker fees on spot and perpetuals.
  • Products, 10%: Spot, perpetuals, options, copy trading, demo trading and portfolio margin.

Each check has a fixed marking rule, printed in full under How we rank crypto exchanges. Caps then hold a score down: 6.0 after a hack in the last year until users are confirmed repaid, and 7.0 for an exchange with no licence on any register.

The score is an opinion, and every score breaks down by check where it is shown.

Country and regional pages

Our country and regional exchange pages rank where someone in that country can buy crypto with local money. They score six checks, with one set of weights for every country:

  • Local regulation, 25%: Registration or a licence with the country's own regulator, and its enforcement record there.
  • Cost to buy, 20%: What it costs, all in, to buy BTC in the local currency, against the middle of the local market.
  • Security and reserves, 20%: The same rule as the worldwide ranking: reserves, a protection fund and the five-year record.
  • Local deposits and withdrawals, 15%: Free local bank deposits and withdrawals, cards and local payment options, and any banking partner cut off in the last two years.
  • Liquidity, 10%: Money offered near the market price on the exchange's own order book in the local currency.
  • Product, 10%: Coins listed, a local-currency order book, and local features such as tax reports, staking and an OTC desk.

Compared with the worldwide ranking, local banking is added at 15%, and security and liquidity each count for 10 points less. A local buyer moves money through local banks, and the cost check already prices their order on the local order book. Caps: a score stops at 4.0 for an exchange missing from the country's register, at 6.0 after a hack in the last year until users are confirmed repaid, and at 7.5 after a local court penalty or regulator's fine in the last two years. Each page prints its full rules under How we score. Scores are relative to that page's list, so one exchange can score differently on a country page and on the worldwide ranking.

Scores are set before any commercial conversation and re-marked each quarter. A platform cannot pay to change one. See the affiliate disclosure.

Alpha AI

Alpha AI answers questions in plain language from a snapshot of terminal data: the perpetual-futures table, 24-hour liquidations, the Fear & Greed Index, spot ETF flows, token unlocks due in the next week and trending DEX pools. The snapshot is rebuilt every few minutes and each answer shows the time of the data it used. The answers are written by Claude, a model made by Anthropic, under instructions not to recommend trades, size positions, predict prices or invent figures. It can still be wrong, and no person reviews an answer before you see it. It is a beta and is not research.

Where the data comes from

Across the terminal, the feeds are: Coinglass, Binance, Bybit, OKX, Hyperliquid, Gate, Bitget, MEXC, Kraken, Deribit, CoinGecko, DefiLlama, GeckoTerminal, DexScreener, Polymarket, Coin Metrics, alternative.me, The Block, CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, Decrypt, The Defiant. Each is published by the exchange or provider named. Their own terms apply to their data.

Dashboard by dashboard

Each entry links to the dashboard, whose own page documents its method in detail. The feed or feeds behind it are shown after the description.

Derivatives

  • Liquidations: Totals, maps and history Coinglass
  • Liquidation Heatmap: Where leverage is stacked Coinglass, Binance, Bybit, OKX, Hyperliquid, Gate, Bitget, MEXC, Kraken, Deribit
  • Funding Rates: Live across six venues Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, Gate, Hyperliquid
  • Options: OI, flows and max pain Deribit
  • Long/Short Ratio: Crowd, whales and taker flow Coinglass, Binance, Bybit, OKX
  • RWA Perps: Stocks, indices, gold and FX perps Hyperliquid
  • Hyperliquid Whale Tracker: Every position over $1M, live Coinglass, Hyperliquid

Flows & Holdings

Onchain

Macro Indicators

Sentiment

News

  • Newsfeed: Tier-one wires, scored and clustered The Block, CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, Decrypt, The Defiant

Tools

Limits of the data

Showing a figure as published does not make it right. These are the limits worth knowing before relying on one.

  • Exchange figures are self-reported: Volume, open interest, funding and long/short ratios are what each exchange publishes about itself. Nobody audits them, and a total covers the exchanges listed on the dashboard, not the whole market.
  • Wallet labels are attributions: Exchange balances and flows depend on the provider's labelling of which wallets belong to which exchange. A wallet that is unlabelled or wrongly labelled moves the figure.
  • Schedules and filings change: Token unlock dates come from published vesting schedules, which a project can change. ETF flows and company treasury holdings come from issuer reports and public filings, which arrive after the fact and can be revised by the issuer.
  • A prediction-market price is a price: It shows what that market's traders are paying and is read as an implied probability. It is not our forecast, and a thin market can be moved by one trader.
  • Indicators describe the past: Fear & Greed, Altcoin Season, RSI, the Mayer Multiple and the MVRV Z-Score summarise what has already happened. None of them is a signal to trade.

When a number is wrong

If a figure on the terminal does not match its source, or a calculation produces something that cannot be right, write to [email protected] with the page and the time you saw it. Data faults are fixed in the code. A change to how a figure is calculated is reflected in the formulas set out above.