ARK ranks #102 of 504 cryptocurrencies. On a list that also counts tokens, memecoins, wrapped coins, staked derivatives and stablecoins it appears at #628: 526 of the 627 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 626 non-native assets CoinSpectrum lists above it by market cap, about 60% are tokens, 31% are claims on other assets and 9% are memecoins.
| CoinSpectrum Grade | C · 62/100 · provisional |
|---|---|
| Rank among cryptocurrencies | #102 |
| Rank counting claims | #628 |
| Market capitalisation | $34M |
| Price | $0.1675 |
| Circulating supply | 200,059,416 ARK |
| Maximum supply | no fixed cap |
| Consensus family | Proof of Stake |
| Consensus mechanism | DPoS (51 delegates) |
| 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 — 62 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 58 to 64 (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) | 4.9 | group average, 12 of 13 measured |
| Sound Money Qualities (6 checks) | 6.8 | 3.4 of 5 points, 1 not yet measured source |
| Scarcity: a fixed cap that holds, and a supply near 21 million | 4.4 | no fixed maximum; 200 million in circulation: supply scale 8.7, 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 | ✓ | 8 decimal places, the smallest unit worth $1.7e-9 |
| Portability: fees of a cent or less and capacity for real demand | ✗ | typical fee $0.016; about 19 transactions a second (2 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 |
| 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) | ✗ | ARK Core relays transactions peer to peer with no Dandelion or built-in Tor. |
| 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) | ✗ | Addresses are public. |
| Scalability (fees, throughput, block time, block space, features) | 4.3 | average of 5 parts source |
| Fees ($0.001 or less 10, $1 or more 0) | 6 | typical fee $0.016 |
| Throughput (2,478 a second, the busiest network's peak day, 10; 119, the median of the ten busiest, 5) | 2 | about 19 simple transactions a second |
| Block time (10 minutes 10, less either side) | 3.3 | a block every 8 seconds |
| Block space per 10 minutes (32 MB or more 10) | 10 | 6.3 MB limit, 473 MB per 10 minutes |
| Features (3 checks) | 0 | 0 of 2 passed, 1 not yet researched |
| Payments safe to accept within seconds | ✗ | DPoS blocks every 8 s with no BFT finality; irreversibility needs many confirmations by the delegate round. |
| Pruned nodes: a full node can validate and drop old history | – | No pruning mode documented for ARK Core. |
| Light clients verify payments from headers or proofs, without a trusted server | ✗ | DPoS chain without finality proofs for clients; wallets rely on relay node APIs. |
| Security (miner pay and 7 checks) | 4 | 4 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% | ✓ | 4.2% |
| Largest three under 75% | ✓ | 11.4% |
| More than one maintained client | ✗ | 1 |
| Node software is open source | ✓ | ARK Ecosystem (ARK SCIC) develops ARK Core and its successor Mainsail. |
| Real on-chain use: 1,000+ transactions a day | ✗ | about 500 a day |
| No 51% attack or deep reorganisation in five years | ✓ | |
| Programmability (tokens, contracts, 5 checks) | 0 | 0 of 9 points source |
| Token issuance | 0 | No token issuance on the chain itself |
| Smart contracts | 0 | ARK Core supports only fixed transaction types; the EVM-based Mainsail rewrite is not in production. |
| Multisig and time locks | ✗ | MultiSignature registration was disabled at height 35,765,000 (Core 3.11.0) and sending from or to multisig wallets at 35,872,000 (Core 3.12.0); HTLC types were never enabled on mainnet. |
| Atomic swaps with other chains | ✗ | HTLC lock/claim/refund types exist in the code but htlcEnabled is set only on devnet, never in the mainnet milestones. |
| An exchange built into the protocol | ✗ | No exchange in the protocol. |
| Cross-chain messaging the chain verifies itself | ✗ | Magistrate transactions (including bridgechain registration) were disabled at height 36,937,100 (Core 3.13.0, August 2026); no cross-chain messaging. |
| Non-fungible tokens | ✗ | No NFT type on the live chain. |
| Decentralisation | 6 | section average, 7 of 8 measured |
| Censorship resistant (Source) | 10 | No authority can halt the chain or freeze funds: No protocol-level freeze of user ARK. source |
| No central team (Source) | 0 | A central team directs it: ARK Ecosystem (ARK SCIC) develops ARK Core and its successor Mainsail. source |
| Who can mint (Source) | 8.6 | Proof of stake: 8.6 of 10 on the ladder of who produces blocks |
| Nodes (Source) | 5.7 | 51 active validators or block producers (source: Active) |
| Holder concentration (Source) | — | Not yet measured |
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 3.8 | 62.5% of today's supply allocated at launch to founders, a company, a foundation or investors. All 125M ARK were placed in the genesis block on 21 March 2017 (93.75M, 75%, to Token Exchange Campaign backers; the other 25% to the team and project), against a current supply of 199,950,096 ARK (CoinGecko, 2026-10-23). source |
| Fundraising | 3.8 | Sold by its issuer or insiders: 62.5% of supply was theirs to sell, 46.9% sold so far. The Token Exchange Campaign (late 2016-Mar 2017, ~$800K in BTC and other crypto) delivered 93.75M ARK (75% of the 125M genesis) to participants in the 21 Mar 2017 genesis block. 93.75M / 199,974,118 ARK (CoinGecko, 2026-10-24) = 46.9%. Token Exchange Campaign (crowdsale) announced in November 2016, open to the public, paid in BTC and other crypto. The amount raised was not established from a primary source (aggregators report about $800K). source |
| Developer share (after launch) | 10 | No developer share: every new coin goes to the miners or validators who produce blocks. No cut. The 2 ARK block reward goes entirely to the forging delegate (validator) since the March 2017 genesis. source |
| Supply & Demand | 7.6 | group average |
| Supply & Demand (Source) | 6.5 | average of 6 measures |
| Exchanges (10 or more: 10) | 8 | 8 exchanges |
| Daily volume ($10K 0, $1B or more 10) | 5.1 | $3,229,210 traded in 24 hours; #295 by volume on the exchanges the site reads (scored on the median day of the last 30, $3,731,763) |
| Turnover (volume ÷ market cap, 5% a day: 10) | 8.5 | 9.7% of its market cap a day, median of the last 30 days |
| Order-book depth (bids and asks within 2% ÷ market cap, 1%: 10) | 7.8 | $75,245 within 2% of the price on 3 exchanges, 0.22% of its market cap, median of the last 2 days |
| Market cap ($1M 0, $10B or more 10) | 3.8 | $34M, 3.8 on a scale of 2.5 points per tenfold |
| Paper trading (futures, options and margin ÷ market cap, 0%: 10, 100%: 0) | 5.8 | futures, options and margin positions 18% of its market cap |
| Supply (smaller is better) | 8.7 | no fixed maximum; 200 million in circulation |
| Record | 8.3 | 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) | 9 | 9 full years since 2017-03-21, the first day with a recorded price (genesis not yet researched, so the age can only be understated). |
| Development (work, improvements, unfixed issues) | 6 | 1 positive, 0 negative source |
| Positive | ||
| Steady work, 6 of 6 | ✓ | 29 commits in 7 of the last 12 months (github.com/ArkEcosystem/core); ARK Core 3.13.0, 19 Aug 2026; three releases in the last 24 months (3.11.0, 3.12.0, 3.13.0, all 2026) after a gap from June 2024; the Mainsail successor is still in preparation. |
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.
200,059,416 ARK are in circulation, against no fixed cap — issuance has no defined end.
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 62.5% of today's supply |
|---|---|
| Sold by the issuer or insiders | 46.9% of today's supply |
| Developer share received since launch | 0% of today's supply |
| Developer share of new coins today | 0% |
| Nodes or validators | 51 |
| Fundraising | Public sale |
All 125M ARK were placed in the genesis block on 21 March 2017 (93.75M, 75%, to Token Exchange Campaign backers; the other 25% to the team and project), against a current supply of 199,950,096 ARK (CoinGecko, 2026-10-23).
Token Exchange Campaign (crowdsale) announced in November 2016, open to the public, paid in BTC and other crypto. The amount raised was not established from a primary source (aggregators report about $800K).
The Token Exchange Campaign (late 2016-Mar 2017, ~$800K in BTC and other crypto) delivered 93.75M ARK (75% of the 125M genesis) to participants in the 21 Mar 2017 genesis block. 93.75M / 199,974,118 ARK (CoinGecko, 2026-10-24) = 46.9%.
No cut. The 2 ARK block reward goes entirely to the forging delegate (validator) since the March 2017 genesis.
Sources: cointelegraph.com · coinbase.com · coingecko.com · ark.io · github.com · yellow.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.
ARK is #102 among cryptocurrencies and #628 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 526 places between ARK'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 ARK →