Tezos ranks #45 of 504 cryptocurrencies. On a list that also counts tokens, memecoins, wrapped coins, staked derivatives and stablecoins it appears at #138: 93 of the 137 assets ahead of it are not native coins but tokens or claims. A token is issued on a host blockchain rather than running its own; a claim stands for an asset already counted. Of the 130 non-native assets CoinSpectrum lists above it by market cap, about 55% are claims on other assets, 39% are tokens and 6% are memecoins.
| CoinSpectrum Grade | A · 77/100 · provisional |
|---|---|
| Rank among cryptocurrencies | #45 |
| Rank counting claims | #138 |
| Market capitalisation | $304M |
| Price | $0.2760 |
| Circulating supply | 1,099,982,509 XTZ |
| Maximum supply | no fixed cap |
| Consensus family | Proof of Stake |
| Consensus mechanism | Liquid PoS (Tenderbake) |
| Network purpose | Smart-contract platform |
| Ledger type | Multi-asset ledger |
| Launch distribution | Presale |
| Regulatory class | Commodity |
Market figures from the 28 October 2026 build. Open the live view for every exchange's price, and charts.
A — 77 out of 100, provisional (from 19 of 20 criteria, 28 October 2026 build). With what is not yet measured anywhere from nothing to full marks, the score would be 73 to 79 (B to A).
| Criterion | Score | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Leading Consensus Mechanisms (Source) | 9.1 | group average |
| Consensus: leader ladder | 9.1 | Proof of stake: 9.1 of 10 on the ladder of consensus families ranked by their largest chain's market cap |
| Consensus: family ladder | 9.1 | Proof of stake: 9.1 of 10 on the ladder of families ranked by the combined market cap of their chains |
| Cryptocurrency Standards (Source) | 7.3 | group average, 12 of 13 measured |
| Sound Money Qualities (6 checks) | 9 | 5.4 of 6 points source |
| Scarcity: a fixed cap that holds, and a supply near 21 million | 3.9 | no fixed maximum; 1.1 billion in circulation: supply scale 7.7, cap 0 |
| Durability: five years or more with no halt, freeze or reversal | ✓ | 9 full years since its first recorded price, no halt, freeze or reversal in five years |
| Fungibility: every unit interchangeable, none the protocol can freeze or set apart | ✓ | no authority can freeze, blacklist or set apart a coin |
| Divisibility: the smallest unit worth a cent or less | ✓ | 6 decimal places, the smallest unit worth $2.8e-7 |
| Portability: fees of a cent or less and capacity for real demand | ✓ | typical fee $0.0001; about 1,000 transactions a second (8.5 on the throughput scale; 5 is the busiest networks' median demand) |
| Verifiability: open-source nodes and checking without a trusted server | ✓ | node software open source; pruned nodes validate everything |
| Privacy (5 checks) | 6 | 3 of 5 passed source |
| Whitepaper privacy: keys are not tied to an identity | ✓ | Anyone can create keys and receive and send coins; the protocol carries no identity check. |
| UTXO ledger: a new key for each payment, no account linking every coin | ✗ | |
| Network-level privacy: the node hides where a transaction came from (Dandelion++, Tor or I2P, on by default) | ✗ | Octez gossips operations directly. |
| Hidden amounts (confidential transactions, RingCT, shielded pools, Mimblewimble) | ✓ | Sapling shielded transactions in the protocol since Edo (Feb 2021); optional. |
| Hidden sender and receiver (ring signatures or zero-knowledge proofs, one-time or stealth addresses) | ✓ | Sapling shielded pools hide sender and receiver; optional. |
| Scalability (fees, throughput, block time, block space, features) | 6.9 | average of 5 parts source |
| Fees ($0.001 or less 10, $1 or more 0) | 10 | typical fee $0.0001 |
| Throughput (2,478 a second, the busiest network's peak day, 10; 119, the median of the ten busiest, 5) | 8.5 | about 1,000 simple transactions a second |
| Block time (10 minutes 10, less either side) | 2.8 | a block every 6 seconds |
| Block space per 10 minutes (32 MB or more 10) | 10 | 0.524 MB limit, 52.4 MB per 10 minutes |
| Features (3 checks) | 3.3 | 1 of 3 passed |
| Payments safe to accept within seconds | ✗ | Tenderbake finalises after two 6-second blocks, about 12 s. |
| Pruned nodes: a full node can validate and drop old history | ✓ | Octez rolling history mode (the default) keeps only recent blocks and state; full mode drops old metadata. |
| Light clients verify payments from headers or proofs, without a trusted server | ✗ | octez-client light mode cross-checks Merkle proofs from several endpoints it must choose; no finality-proof light client. |
| Security (miner pay and 7 checks) | 5 | 5 of 9 points source |
| Miners paid a day ($1,000 0, $10 million or more 10), 2 points | 0 | not mined |
| Its own hashrate: at least half its algorithm's largest, not merge-mined | ✗ | not mined |
| Largest pool or validator under 50% | ✓ | 13.84% |
| Largest three under 75% | ✓ | 31.16% |
| More than one maintained client | ✗ | 1 |
| Node software is open source | ✓ | Octez is developed jointly by Nomadic Labs, TriliTech, Functori and other teams funded by the Tezos Foundation; protocol changes need on-chain baker votes. |
| Real on-chain use: 1,000+ transactions a day | ✓ | about 448,992 a day |
| No 51% attack or deep reorganisation in five years | ✓ | |
| Programmability (tokens, contracts, 5 checks) | 7.8 | 7 of 9 points source |
| Token issuance at protocol level, validated by its own nodes | 2 | FA1.2 and FA2 token contracts in Michelson, open to any account. |
| Smart contracts: a general-purpose contract system | 2 | Michelson smart contracts deployable by any account, running DEXs and NFT markets on mainnet. |
| Multisig and time locks | ✓ | Multisig contracts and timelock contracts (time checks and Michelson timelock opcodes). |
| Atomic swaps with other chains | ✓ | Michelson contracts can hold funds against a hash preimage with a time-based refund (HTLC). |
| An exchange built into the protocol | ✗ | The liquidity-baking CPMM (Sirius DEX, originated by the protocol in 2021) is an ordinary contract whose subsidy is off: the toggle EMA (about 1.48 billion) is above the 1 billion threshold. |
| Cross-chain messaging the chain verifies itself | ✗ | No protocol messaging to other chains; Etherlink is a rollup. |
| Non-fungible tokens | ✓ | FA2 token contracts, which support non-fungible tokens. |
| Decentralisation | 7.5 | section average, 7 of 8 measured |
| Censorship resistant (Source) | 10 | No authority can halt the chain or freeze funds: No protocol-level freeze, blacklist or halt authority; protocol changes require on-chain governance votes. source |
| No central team (Source) | 10 | No central team: Octez is developed jointly by Nomadic Labs, TriliTech, Functori and other teams funded by the Tezos Foundation; protocol changes need on-chain baker votes. source |
| Who can mint (Source) | 8.6 | Proof of stake: 8.6 of 10 on the ladder of who produces blocks |
| Nodes (Source) | 7.7 | 198 active validators or block producers (source: api.tzkt.io) |
| Holder concentration (Source) | — | Not yet measured |
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 3.2 | 68.2% of today's supply allocated at launch to founders, a company, a foundation or investors. 763.3M XTZ created in the genesis block (607.49M fundraiser contributors, 3.16M early backers and contractors, 76.33M each to the Tezos Foundation and DLS), against ~1.1195B current total supply (CoinGecko total, 2026-10-23). source |
| Fundraising | 3.2 | Sold by its issuer or insiders: 68.2% of supply was theirs to sell, 54.3% sold so far. The July 2017 fundraiser delivered 607.49M XTZ to contributors at genesis; the 3.16M to early backers and contractors (undisclosed terms) and the Foundation and DLS allocations are not counted. 607.49M / ~1,119.5M total supply (CoinGecko, 2026-10-23) = 54.3%. July 2017 public fundraiser collected 65,681 BTC and 361,122 ETH (~$232M at the time); 3.16M XTZ went to 'early backers and contractors' on undisclosed terms. source |
| Developer share (after launch) | 10 | No developer share: every new coin goes to the miners or validators who produce blocks. Issuance (adaptive issuance since the Paris protocol, 2024) goes to bakers and stakers. The liquidity-baking subsidy sends a small slice of issuance to the Sirius tez/tzBTC DEX contract for its liquidity providers. That is not a developer, foundation or treasury, so it is not counted. Tezos has no protocol treasury. source |
| Supply & Demand | 7.6 | group average |
| Supply & Demand (Source) | 7.5 | average of 6 measures |
| Exchanges (10 or more: 10) | 10 | 39 exchanges |
| Daily volume ($10K 0, $1B or more 10) | 5.2 | $2,100,606 traded in 24 hours; #279 by volume on the exchanges the site reads (scored on the median day of the last 30, $4,172,680) |
| Turnover (volume ÷ market cap, 5% a day: 10) | 6.7 | 1.2% of its market cap a day, median of the last 30 days |
| Order-book depth (bids and asks within 2% ÷ market cap, 1%: 10) | 8.3 | $953,089 within 2% of the price on 9 exchanges, 0.31% of its market cap, median of the last 2 days |
| Market cap ($1M 0, $10B or more 10) | 6.2 | $304M, 6.2 on a scale of 2.5 points per tenfold |
| Paper trading (futures, options and margin ÷ market cap, 0%: 10, 100%: 0) | 8.3 | futures, options and margin positions 2.8% of its market cap |
| Supply (smaller is better) | 7.7 | no fixed maximum; 1.1 billion in circulation |
| Record | 8.7 | group average |
| Record (origin, claims, halts) | 10 | 3 positive, 0 negative source |
| Positive record | ||
| Launched with a stated purpose, not as a joke | ✓ | |
| No claims by its founders that contradict its own design | ✓ | |
| No halt, freeze or reversal in five years | ✓ | |
| Age (years since genesis) (Source) | 9 | 9 full years since 2017-06-23, the first day with a recorded price (genesis not yet researched, so the age can only be understated). |
| Development (work, improvements, unfixed issues) | 7 | 2 positive, 0 negative, 2 not yet researched source |
| Positive | ||
| Steady work, 6 of 6 | ✓ | 15,217 commits in 12 of the last 12 months (gitlab.com/tezos/tezos); Octez v25.3, released 2026-10-20. |
| Shipped a scaling upgrade in two years, +1 | ✓ | Tallinn, 24 Jan 2026: block time from 8 to 6 s and storage costs cut up to 100x. |
| Not yet researched | ||
| Shipped a security fix in two years | – | |
| Shipped a new capability for users in two years | – | |
Twenty criteria, weighted equally. The Cryptocurrency Standards have six sections: sound money qualities (six checks: scarcity, durability, fungibility, divisibility, portability, verifiability), privacy (five checks), scalability (four measures and three features), security (miner pay and seven checks), programmability (token issuance, smart contracts and five checks) and decentralisation (censorship resistance, no central team, who can mint, nodes, holders, premine, fundraising and developer share). Provisional: criteria marked — are not yet measured and are left out of the average. A rating of structure and market depth, not a price forecast or investment advice. How the grade is built · Highest-graded cryptocurrencies.
1,099,982,509 XTZ are in circulation, against no fixed cap — issuance has no defined end.
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 68.2% of today's supply |
|---|---|
| Sold by the issuer or insiders | 54.3% of today's supply |
| Developer share received since launch | 0% of today's supply |
| Developer share of new coins today | 0% |
| Nodes or validators | 198 |
| Fundraising | Public sale |
763.3M XTZ created in the genesis block (607.49M fundraiser contributors, 3.16M early backers and contractors, 76.33M each to the Tezos Foundation and DLS), against ~1.1195B current total supply (CoinGecko total, 2026-10-23).
July 2017 public fundraiser collected 65,681 BTC and 361,122 ETH (~$232M at the time); 3.16M XTZ went to 'early backers and contractors' on undisclosed terms.
The July 2017 fundraiser delivered 607.49M XTZ to contributors at genesis; the 3.16M to early backers and contractors (undisclosed terms) and the Foundation and DLS allocations are not counted. 607.49M / ~1,119.5M total supply (CoinGecko, 2026-10-23) = 54.3%.
Issuance (adaptive issuance since the Paris protocol, 2024) goes to bakers and stakers. The liquidity-baking subsidy sends a small slice of issuance to the Sirius tez/tzBTC DEX contract for its liquidity providers. That is not a developer, foundation or treasury, so it is not counted. Tezos has no protocol treasury.
Sources: tezos.foundation · coingecko.com · tezos.gitlab.io · tezos.gitlab.io · tezos.foundation · coindesk.com. Researched 2026-10-24, high confidence.
Named a digital commodity in the joint SEC-CFTC interpretation (Mar 17, 2026).
The regulator's position, reported as stated, not CoinSpectrum's. Assets nobody has ruled on are left unclassified rather than sorted by a guess.
Tezos is #45 among cryptocurrencies and #138 in the market ranking, which lists wrapped coins, staked derivatives, stablecoins and tokens alongside them. CoinSpectrum counts an asset once, and counts only cryptocurrencies: assets with their own blockchain and their own consensus. A wrapped coin, a staked derivative or a stablecoin is a claim on something already counted; a token, memecoin or otherwise, runs on another chain's blocks. All of them are listed, each in its own section, and none is added to the total. The 93 places between Tezos's two ranks are held by claims and tokens, not by other networks. The methodology sets out the rule and the counting rule argues for it.
The price above is the median of the exchanges the site reads live, checked every minute and cross-checked against a market snapshot (how market data is gathered). The grade is scored on published criteria, each with its source (the method). The site is independent, nothing on it is a paid placement, and its statements are signed (about CoinSpectrum, the manifesto).
See the 2 wrapped and staked claims on Tezos →