ZetaChain ranks #72 of 504 cryptocurrencies. On a list that also counts tokens, memecoins, wrapped coins, staked derivatives and stablecoins it appears at #376: 304 of the 375 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 386 non-native assets CoinSpectrum lists above it by market cap, about 53% are tokens, 40% are claims on other assets and 7% are memecoins.
| CoinSpectrum Grade | C · 56/100 · provisional |
|---|---|
| Rank among cryptocurrencies | #72 |
| Rank counting claims | #376 |
| Market capitalisation | $65M |
| Price | $0.0394 |
| Circulating supply | 1,655,718,750 ZETA |
| Maximum supply | 2,100,000,000 ZETA |
| Consensus family | Proof of Stake |
| Consensus mechanism | Tendermint (CometBFT) |
| Network purpose | Interoperability hub |
| Ledger type | Single-asset ledger |
| Launch distribution | Presale |
Market figures from the 28 October 2026 build. Open the live view for every exchange's price, and charts.
C — 56 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 53 to 59 (C to C).
| 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) | 4.5 | group average, 12 of 13 measured |
| Sound Money Qualities (6 checks) | 6.5 | 3.9 of 6 points source |
| Scarcity: a fixed cap that holds, and a supply near 21 million | 8.7 | fixed maximum supply of 2.1 billion: supply scale 7.3, cap 10 |
| Durability: five years or more with no halt, freeze or reversal | ✗ | 2 full years since its first recorded price, 3 halts, freezes or reversals in five years |
| Fungibility: every unit interchangeable, none the protocol can freeze or set apart | ✗ | an authority can freeze funds: Team-held admin policies in the authority module can pause inbound and outbound cross-chain transfers and ZRC-20 withdrawals, which were paused indefinitely in 2026. |
| Divisibility: the smallest unit worth a cent or less | ✓ | 18 decimal places, the smallest unit worth $3.9e-20 |
| Portability: fees of a cent or less and capacity for real demand | ✓ | typical fee $0.0000084; about 622 transactions a second (7.7 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; light clients verify from headers or proofs |
| Privacy (5 checks) | 2 | 1 of 5 passed source |
| Whitepaper privacy: keys are not tied to an identity | ✓ | Any key can hold and send ZETA; the Cosmos SDK bank and auth modules carry 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) | ✗ | CometBFT gossip relays transactions directly. |
| Hidden amounts (confidential transactions, RingCT, shielded pools, Mimblewimble) | ✗ | No confidential transactions. |
| Hidden sender and receiver (ring signatures or zero-knowledge proofs, one-time or stealth addresses) | ✗ | No sender or receiver hiding. |
| Scalability (fees, throughput, block time, block space, features) | 8 | average of 5 parts source |
| Fees ($0.001 or less 10, $1 or more 0) | 10 | typical fee $0.0000084 |
| Throughput (2,478 a second, the busiest network's peak day, 10; 119, the median of the ten busiest, 5) | 7.7 | about 622 simple transactions a second |
| Block time (10 minutes 10, less either side) | 2.1 | a block every 3.83 seconds |
| Block space per 10 minutes (32 MB or more 10) | 10 | 22 MB limit, 3450 MB per 10 minutes |
| Features (3 checks) | 10 | 3 of 3 passed |
| Payments safe to accept within seconds | ✓ | CometBFT gives deterministic single-block finality with blocks of about 3.8 seconds. |
| Pruned nodes: a full node can validate and drop old history | ✓ | Cosmos SDK pruning strategies plus min-retain-blocks. |
| Light clients verify payments from headers or proofs, without a trusted server | ✓ | CometBFT light client verifies headers from validator signatures. |
| 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% | ✓ | 22% |
| Largest three under 75% | ✓ | 42.3% |
| More than one maintained client | ✗ | 1 |
| Node software is open source | ✓ | zeta-chain/node (MIT, copyright Meta Protocol, Inc.) is developed by ZetaChain Labs / Meta Protocol, which sets the roadmap, including the 2026 pivot to AI. |
| Real on-chain use: 1,000+ transactions a day | ✓ | about 55,500 a day |
| No 51% attack or deep reorganisation in five years | ✓ | |
| Programmability (tokens, contracts, 5 checks) | 8.9 | 8 of 9 points source |
| Token issuance at protocol level, validated by its own nodes | 2 | ERC-20 contracts on the zEVM, open to any account. |
| Smart contracts: a general-purpose contract system | 2 | zEVM, an EVM-compatible environment on Cosmos SDK/CometBFT, open to any account. |
| Multisig and time locks | ✓ | Multisig and timelock contracts on the zEVM. |
| Atomic swaps with other chains | ✓ | EVM HTLC contracts (hash lock plus timelock refund). |
| An exchange built into the protocol | ✗ | No exchange module; swaps run through contracts. |
| Cross-chain messaging the chain verifies itself | ✓ | Observer-signer validators watch external chains (Bitcoin, EVM chains, Solana) and co-sign outbound transactions with TSS, two-thirds agreement required. |
| Non-fungible tokens | ✓ | ERC-721 contracts on the zEVM. |
| Decentralisation | 3.4 | section average, 7 of 8 measured |
| Censorship resistant (Source) | 0 | An authority can halt the chain or freeze funds: Team-held admin policies in the authority module can pause inbound and outbound cross-chain transfers and ZRC-20 withdrawals, which were paused indefinitely in 2026. source |
| No central team (Source) | 0 | A central team directs it: zeta-chain/node (MIT, copyright Meta Protocol, Inc.) is developed by ZetaChain Labs / Meta Protocol, which sets the roadmap, including the 2026 pivot to AI. source |
| Who can mint (Source) | 8.6 | Proof of stake: 8.6 of 10 on the ladder of who produces blocks |
| Nodes (Source) | 5.4 | 41 reachable nodes source |
| Holder concentration (Source) | — | Not yet measured |
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 0 | 100% of today's supply allocated at launch to founders, a company, a foundation or investors. The full 2.1B ZETA supply was allocated at launch (Feb 2024) to protocol treasury 24%, core contributors 22.5%, purchasers & advisors 16%, ecosystem growth 12%, user growth 10%, validator incentives 10%, liquidity incentives 5.5%; validator rewards come from the pre-allocated pool, so no coin was minted by open participants. source |
| Fundraising | 0 | Sold by its issuer or insiders: 100% of supply was theirs to sell, 15.9% sold so far. The $27M round (Aug 2023) at $0.081/ZETA bought ~333.3M ZETA, the purchasers part of the 16% purchasers-and-advisors bucket (336M). 333.3M / 2,100,000,000 ZETA total (CoinGecko, 2026-10-24) = 15.9%. $27M round announced Aug 2023 (Blockchain.com, Jane Street, VY Capital, GSR and others); the 16% purchasers bucket is tied to it at $0.081/ZETA. source |
| Developer share (after launch) | 10 | No developer share: every new coin goes to the miners or validators who produce blocks. No cut and no new issuance: the 2.1B ZETA supply is fixed and validator/observer rewards come from the pre-allocated validator-incentives pool via the emissions module. source |
| Supply & Demand | 7.5 | group average |
| Supply & Demand (Source) | 7.7 | average of 6 measures |
| Exchanges (10 or more: 10) | 10 | 35 exchanges |
| Daily volume ($10K 0, $1B or more 10) | 5.1 | $3,047,274 traded in 24 hours; #315 by volume on the exchanges the site reads (scored on the median day of the last 30, $3,402,688) |
| Turnover (volume ÷ market cap, 5% a day: 10) | 9.8 | 4.5% of its market cap a day, median of the last 30 days |
| Order-book depth (bids and asks within 2% ÷ market cap, 1%: 10) | 10 | $672,536 within 2% of the price on 8 exchanges, 1.0% of its market cap, median of the last 2 days |
| Market cap ($1M 0, $10B or more 10) | 4.5 | $65M, 4.5 on a scale of 2.5 points per tenfold |
| Paper trading (futures, options and margin ÷ market cap, 0%: 10, 100%: 0) | 6.6 | futures, options and margin positions 12% of its market cap |
| Supply (smaller is better) | 7.3 | fixed maximum supply of 2.1 billion |
| Record | 6.3 | group average |
| Record (origin, claims, halts) | 9 | 2 positive, 3 negative source |
| Positive record | ||
| Launched with a stated purpose, not as a joke | ✓ | |
| No claims by its founders that contradict its own design | ✓ | |
| Negative record | ||
| Halt, freeze or reversal, 2024-10-31 | ✗ | Mainnet stopped producing blocks for about six hours (from 23:53 UTC) after a consensus failure linked to an update run by a few validators. |
| Halt, freeze or reversal, 2026-04-26 | ✗ | ZetaChain paused all cross-chain transactions after a ~$334K GatewayEVM exploit of team wallets; the pause lasted well beyond nine hours. |
| Halt, freeze or reversal, 2026-06-30 | ✗ | ZetaChain ended cross-chain observation on 10 networks and paused ZRC-20 withdrawals indefinitely as part of its pivot to AI (deposits disabled 2026-06-01). |
| Age (years since genesis) (Source) | 2 | 2 full years since 2024-02-01, the first day with a recorded price (genesis not yet researched, so the age can only be understated). |
| Development (work, improvements, unfixed issues) | 8 | 3 positive, 0 negative, 1 not yet researched source |
| Positive | ||
| Steady work, 6 of 6 | ✓ | 371 commits in 12 of the last 12 months (github.com/zeta-chain/node); zetachain node v36.0.6 released 2026-09-03; emergency drain mainnet build 2026-08-26. |
| Shipped a security fix in two years, +1 | ✓ | v36.0.6, 3 Sep 2026: public release of a private patch for Cosmos EVM security vulnerabilities. |
| Shipped a new capability for users in two years, +1 | ✓ | v38.0.3, Apr 2026: Solana address-lookup-table inbounds, Sui and TON connected-chain support. |
| Not yet researched | ||
| Shipped a scaling upgrade 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.
1,655,718,750 of a maximum 2,100,000,000 ZETA are in circulation — 78.8% of the total that will ever exist.
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 100% of today's supply |
|---|---|
| Sold by the issuer or insiders | 15.9% of today's supply |
| Developer share received since launch | 0% of today's supply |
| Developer share of new coins today | 0% |
| Nodes or validators | 41 |
| Fundraising | Private or venture funding |
The full 2.1B ZETA supply was allocated at launch (Feb 2024) to protocol treasury 24%, core contributors 22.5%, purchasers & advisors 16%, ecosystem growth 12%, user growth 10%, validator incentives 10%, liquidity incentives 5.5%; validator rewards come from the pre-allocated pool, so no coin was minted by open participants.
$27M round announced Aug 2023 (Blockchain.com, Jane Street, VY Capital, GSR and others); the 16% purchasers bucket is tied to it at $0.081/ZETA.
The $27M round (Aug 2023) at $0.081/ZETA bought ~333.3M ZETA, the purchasers part of the 16% purchasers-and-advisors bucket (336M). 333.3M / 2,100,000,000 ZETA total (CoinGecko, 2026-10-24) = 15.9%.
No cut and no new issuance: the 2.1B ZETA supply is fixed and validator/observer rewards come from the pre-allocated validator-incentives pool via the emissions module.
Sources: zetachain.com · coingecko.com · github.com · app.tokenomics.com · blockworks.co · finextra.com. Researched 2026-10-24, medium confidence.
No SEC/CFTC determination — unclassified.
The regulator's position, reported as stated, not CoinSpectrum's. Assets nobody has ruled on are left unclassified rather than sorted by a guess.
ZetaChain is #72 among cryptocurrencies and #376 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 304 places between ZetaChain'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).