Ardor ranks #115 of 504 cryptocurrencies. On a list that also counts tokens, memecoins, wrapped coins, staked derivatives and stablecoins it appears at #762: 647 of the 761 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 767 non-native assets CoinSpectrum lists above it by market cap, about 62% are tokens, 28% are claims on other assets and 9% are memecoins.
| CoinSpectrum Grade | C · 61/100 · provisional |
|---|---|
| Rank among cryptocurrencies | #115 |
| Rank counting claims | #762 |
| Market capitalisation | $25M |
| Price | $0.0248 |
| Circulating supply | 998,466,231 ARDR |
| Maximum supply | no fixed cap |
| Consensus family | Proof of Stake |
| Consensus mechanism | Pure PoS (Nxt-derived) |
| Ledger type | Multi-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 — 61 out of 100, provisional (from 18 of 20 criteria, 28 October 2026 build). With what is not yet measured anywhere from nothing to full marks, the score would be 55 to 65 (C to B).
| 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, 11 of 13 measured |
| Sound Money Qualities (6 checks) | 5.7 | 3.4 of 6 points source |
| Scarcity: a fixed cap that holds, and a supply near 21 million | 3.9 | no fixed maximum; 998 million in circulation: supply scale 7.8, cap 0 |
| Durability: five years or more with no halt, freeze or reversal | ✓ | 10 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 | ✓ | 8 decimal places, the smallest unit worth $2.5e-10 |
| Portability: fees of a cent or less and capacity for real demand | ✗ | typical fee $0.025 |
| Verifiability: open-source nodes and checking without a trusted server | ✗ | node software not open source |
| Privacy (5 checks) | 2 | 1 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) | ✗ | Ardor nodes relay transactions directly; Tor is only an optional user setting. |
| Hidden amounts (confidential transactions, RingCT, shielded pools, Mimblewimble) | ✗ | Transfers are public. |
| Hidden sender and receiver (ring signatures or zero-knowledge proofs, one-time or stealth addresses) | ✗ | Accounts are public. |
| Scalability (fees, throughput, block time, block space, features) | 3.9 | average of 3 parts source |
| Fees ($0.001 or less 10, $1 or more 0) | 5.3 | typical fee $0.025 |
| Throughput (2,478 a second, the busiest network's peak day, 10; 119, the median of the ten busiest, 5) | – | not yet measured |
| Block time (10 minutes 10, less either side) | 6.4 | a block every 1 minute |
| Block space per 10 minutes (32 MB or more 10) | – | not yet measured |
| Features (3 checks) | 0 | 0 of 2 passed, 1 not yet researched |
| Payments safe to accept within seconds | ✗ | About one-minute blocks with probabilistic confirmation (rollback depth 720). |
| Pruned nodes: a full node can validate and drop old history | – | Child-chain transaction pruning is part of Ardor's design and prunable attachments exist, but full pruning was experimental (3.0.0e testnet) and mainnet status was not confirmed. |
| Light clients verify payments from headers or proofs, without a trusted server | ✗ | Light wallet modes connect to remote nodes without header or Merkle proofs. |
| Security (miner pay and 7 checks) | 2 | 2 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% | ✗ | 51.3% |
| Largest three under 75% | ✓ | 58.7% |
| More than one maintained client | ✗ | 1 |
| Node software is open source | ✗ | Jelurida maintains the only node; the source is public but under the Jelurida Public License, which binds derived chains to airdrop to ARDR/NXT holders, so it is not an OSI open-source licence. |
| Real on-chain use: 1,000+ transactions a day | ✗ | about 499 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 | Asset Exchange on its child chains (Ignis and others), whose transactions are validated by every Ardor node; any account can issue an asset for a fee. |
| Smart contracts: scripting for spending conditions | 1 | Phased transactions set conditions for execution (votes by accounts or balances, linked transactions, hashed secret, finish height, composite expressions); lightweight contracts run off-consensus on node operators' machines. |
| Multisig and time locks | ✓ | Phasing by account vote with a whitelist and quorum gives m-of-n approval, and the finish height defers execution. |
| Atomic swaps with other chains | ✓ | Phasing by hashed secret (SHA-256 or RIPEMD-160) with a finish height expresses an HTLC. |
| An exchange built into the protocol | ✓ | Asset Exchange and Coin Exchange between child chains are protocol features validated by every node. |
| Cross-chain messaging the chain verifies itself | ✗ | Child chains share Ardor's own ledger; no messaging to external chains. |
| Non-fungible tokens | ✓ | Singleton assets on Ignis, whose share increase is hard-coded to be rejected. |
| Decentralisation | 4.8 | section average, 6 of 8 measured |
| Censorship resistant (Source) | 10 | No authority can halt the chain or freeze funds: No freeze or clawback power over ARDR; asset-control features apply to child-chain assets chosen by their issuers. source |
| No central team (Source) | 0 | A central team directs it: Jelurida maintains the only node; the source is public but under the Jelurida Public License, which binds derived chains to airdrop to ARDR/NXT holders, so it is not an OSI open-source licence. source |
| Who can mint (Source) | 8.6 | Proof of stake: 8.6 of 10 on the ladder of who produces blocks |
| Nodes (Source) | — | Not yet counted |
| 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. Ardor has no block subsidy: all 998,999,495 ARDR were created at once from a snapshot of Nxt, and Jelurida's docs say no new ARDR will ever be created. Forgers earn only fees, so the chain has no open minting. Current supply is 998,466,231 ARDR (CoinGecko, 2026-10-23). source |
| Fundraising | 0 | Sold by its issuer or insiders: 100% of supply was theirs to sell, 0% sold so far. ARDR itself was never sold. It was airdropped 1:1 to NXT holders, first as an asset on Nxt in 2016 and then converted into native ARDR at the Ardor genesis snapshot (Nxt block 1,636,363, 28 December 2017; launch 1 January 2018). The underlying 1B NXT had been distributed in a 2013 forum fundraising open to anyone, which raised 21 BTC (about $17,000 then). source |
| Developer share (after launch) | 10 | No developer share: every new coin goes to the miners or validators who produce blocks. Ardor has no block subsidy: forgers earn only fees and no new ARDR is ever created, so there is no issuance to cut. source |
| Supply & Demand | 6.7 | group average |
| Supply & Demand (Source) | 5.5 | average of 3 measures |
| Exchanges (10 or more: 10) | – | exchanges not yet counted |
| Daily volume ($10K 0, $1B or more 10) | 4.9 | $2,723,973 traded in 24 hours; #353 by volume |
| Turnover (volume ÷ market cap, 5% a day: 10) | 8.2 | 11% of its market cap a day |
| Order-book depth (bids and asks within 2% ÷ market cap, 1%: 10) | – | no order book on the nine exchanges read |
| Market cap ($1M 0, $10B or more 10) | 3.5 | $25M, 3.5 on a scale of 2.5 points per tenfold |
| Paper trading (futures, options and margin ÷ market cap, 0%: 10, 100%: 0) | – | not measured |
| Supply (smaller is better) | 7.8 | no fixed maximum; 998 million in circulation |
| Record | 9.3 | 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) | 10 | 10 full years since 2016-07-23, 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 source |
| Positive | ||
| Steady work, 6 of 6 | ✓ | Jelurida Ardor 2.6.3, 2026-06-24 (release count in 24 months not verified). |
| Shipped a security fix in two years, +1 | ✓ | Ardor 2.6.1, Mar 2026: consensus fix to transaction-deadline validation, applied by hard fork at block 4,390,000. |
| Shipped a new capability for users in two years, +1 | ✓ | Ardor 2.6.0, hard fork at block 4,333,333 (1 Feb 2026): Atomic Transaction Chains enabled and Nxt migrated as a child chain. |
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.
998,466,231 ARDR are in circulation, against no fixed cap — issuance has no defined end.
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 100% of today's supply |
|---|---|
| Sold by the issuer or insiders | 0% of today's supply |
| Developer share received since launch | 0% of today's supply |
| Developer share of new coins today | 0% |
| Fundraising | Public sale |
Ardor has no block subsidy: all 998,999,495 ARDR were created at once from a snapshot of Nxt, and Jelurida's docs say no new ARDR will ever be created. Forgers earn only fees, so the chain has no open minting. Current supply is 998,466,231 ARDR (CoinGecko, 2026-10-23).
ARDR itself was never sold. It was airdropped 1:1 to NXT holders, first as an asset on Nxt in 2016 and then converted into native ARDR at the Ardor genesis snapshot (Nxt block 1,636,363, 28 December 2017; launch 1 January 2018). The underlying 1B NXT had been distributed in a 2013 forum fundraising open to anyone, which raised 21 BTC (about $17,000 then).
Ardor has no block subsidy: forgers earn only fees and no new ARDR is ever created, so there is no issuance to cut.
The site has no label yet. This is a fixed-supply chain created entirely by the founders' distribution (an airdrop to NXT holders), so it scores 100 under the no-open-minting rule. The exact window of the 2016 Nxt snapshot was not confirmed against a Jelurida primary source. KuCoin gives July–October 2016.
Sources: ardordocs.jelurida.com · ardordocs.jelurida.com · jelurida.com · en.wikipedia.org · coingecko.com. Researched 2026-10-24, high 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.
Ardor is #115 among cryptocurrencies and #762 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 647 places between Ardor'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).