Decentralized Social ranks #149 of 504 cryptocurrencies. On a list that also counts tokens, memecoins, wrapped coins, staked derivatives and stablecoins it appears at #998: 849 of the 997 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 1228 non-native assets CoinSpectrum lists above it by market cap, about 70% are tokens, 22% are claims on other assets and 8% are memecoins.
| CoinSpectrum Grade | C · 59/100 · provisional |
|---|---|
| Rank among cryptocurrencies | #149 |
| Rank counting claims | #998 |
| Market capitalisation | $9M |
| Price | $1.03 |
| Circulating supply | 8,884,536 DESO |
| Maximum supply | 10,808,492 DESO |
| Consensus family | Proof of Stake |
| Consensus mechanism | Revolution PoS (Fast HotStuff) |
| 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 — 59 out of 100, provisional (from 17 of 20 criteria, 28 October 2026 build). With what is not yet measured anywhere from nothing to full marks, the score would be 49 to 66 (D 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, 10 of 13 measured |
| Sound Money Qualities (6 checks) | 8.8 | 3.5 of 4 points, 2 not yet measured source |
| Scarcity: a fixed cap that holds, and a supply near 21 million | 4.7 | fixed maximum supply of 10.8 million, but an issuer or vote can mint outside the schedule: supply scale 9.4, cap 0 |
| Durability: five years or more with no halt, freeze or reversal | ✓ | 5 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 | ✓ | 9 decimal places, the smallest unit worth $1.0e-9 |
| Portability: fees of a cent or less and capacity for real 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) | ✗ | DeSo nodes relay transactions directly; 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) | ✗ | Public keys and usernames are public. |
| Scalability (fees, throughput, block time, block space, features) | — | too few measures yet source |
| Fees ($0.001 or less 10, $1 or more 0) | – | not yet measured |
| 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) | 0.8 | a block every 1.63 seconds |
| Block space per 10 minutes (32 MB or more 10) | – | not yet measured |
| Features (3 checks) | 5 | 1 of 2 passed, 1 not yet researched |
| Payments safe to accept within seconds | ✓ | Revolution PoS uses Fast HotStuff with about 2-second blocks and deterministic finality within a few seconds. |
| Pruned nodes: a full node can validate and drop old history | – | Not established. |
| Light clients verify payments from headers or proofs, without a trusted server | ✗ | No light-client protocol; apps query node APIs. |
| 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% | ✓ | 18.3% |
| Largest three under 75% | ✓ | 40.3% |
| More than one maintained client | ✗ | 1 |
| Node software is open source | ✓ | The DeSo Foundation core team maintains deso-protocol/core (MIT), the only node. |
| Real on-chain use: 1,000+ transactions a day | ✓ | about 1,881 a day |
| No 51% attack or deep reorganisation in five years | ✓ | |
| Programmability (tokens, contracts, 5 checks) | 4.4 | 4 of 9 points source |
| Token issuance at protocol level, validated by its own nodes | 2 | Native creator coins and DAO coins in the protocol: any account can mint its own DAO coin. |
| Smart contracts | 0 | Fixed social and financial transaction types; no user-programmable contracts. |
| Multisig and time locks | ✗ | No multisig or time-lock transaction type is documented. |
| Atomic swaps with other chains | ✗ | No hash-lock transaction type, so swaps with another chain cannot be expressed. |
| An exchange built into the protocol | ✓ | On-chain order book for DeSo Tokens (DAO coin limit orders against DESO or other tokens) in the protocol. |
| Cross-chain messaging the chain verifies itself | ✗ | No cross-chain feature in the protocol. |
| Non-fungible tokens | ✓ | Native NFT transaction types (CREATE_NFT, NFT_BID, ACCEPT_NFT_BID, transfer, burn) on chain. |
| Decentralisation | 4.9 | section average, 6 of 8 measured |
| Censorship resistant (Source) | 10 | No authority can halt the chain or freeze funds: No protocol-level freeze of user DESO is documented. source |
| No central team (Source) | 0 | A central team directs it: The DeSo Foundation core team maintains deso-protocol/core (MIT), the only node. 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) | 0.3 | 97% of today's supply allocated at launch to founders, a company, a foundation or investors. DeSo docs: of the initial ~10.8M DESO, ~77% was sold through the 2021 bonding curve and ~20% went to the team; only ~3% was proof-of-work mined. The docs say the list is exhaustive. Sale plus team = ~97% of initial supply. Current total supply including 2024+ staking rewards and fee burns was not retrieved; on-chain staking issuance would lower the share slightly. source |
| Fundraising | 0.3 | Sold by its issuer or insiders: 97% of supply was theirs to sell, 77% sold so far. An open bonding curve (price from $0.50 doubling per 1M DESO sold, paid in BTC) raised about 5k BTC before a hard fork closed it. Al-Naji announced the sale as a $200M raise with Sequoia, a16z, Coinbase Ventures, Winklevoss Capital and others buying DESO through it (The Block, Sept 2021). source |
| Developer share (after launch) | 10 | No developer share: every new coin goes to the miners or validators who produce blocks. Since Revolution PoS (2024), the only new issuance is the staking APY paid to everyone who stakes with validators, and the docs say there are no other DESO sources. Earlier PoW block rewards went to miners. No foundation or treasury cut. source |
| Supply & Demand | 6.1 | group average |
| Supply & Demand (Source) | 2.7 | average of 6 measures |
| Exchanges (10 or more: 10) | 2 | 2 exchanges |
| Daily volume ($10K 0, $1B or more 10) | 0 | $490 traded in 24 hours; #3519 by volume on the exchanges the site reads (scored on the median day of the last 30, $584) |
| Turnover (volume ÷ market cap, 5% a day: 10) | 0 | 0.01% of its market cap a day, median of the last 30 days |
| Order-book depth (bids and asks within 2% ÷ market cap, 1%: 10) | 1.7 | $288 within 2% of the price on 1 exchange, 0.00% of its market cap, median of the last 2 days |
| Market cap ($1M 0, $10B or more 10) | 2.4 | $9.1M, 2.4 on a scale of 2.5 points per tenfold |
| Paper trading (futures, options and margin ÷ market cap, 0%: 10, 100%: 0) | 10 | no futures, options or margin on the exchanges read |
| Supply (smaller is better) | 9.4 | fixed maximum supply of 10.8 million |
| Record | 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) | 5 | 5 full years since 2021-06-16, 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 | ✓ | 24 commits in 5 of the last 12 months (github.com/deso-protocol/core); deso core v4.0.7, 3 Feb 2026; four releases in the last 24 months (v4.0.4 to v4.0.7). |
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.
8,884,536 of a maximum 10,808,492 DESO are in circulation — 82.2% of the total that will ever exist.
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 97% of today's supply |
|---|---|
| Sold by the issuer or insiders | 77% of today's supply |
| Developer share received since launch | 0% of today's supply |
| Developer share of new coins today | 0% |
| Fundraising | Public sale |
DeSo docs: of the initial ~10.8M DESO, ~77% was sold through the 2021 bonding curve and ~20% went to the team; only ~3% was proof-of-work mined. The docs say the list is exhaustive. Sale plus team = ~97% of initial supply. Current total supply including 2024+ staking rewards and fee burns was not retrieved; on-chain staking issuance would lower the share slightly.
An open bonding curve (price from $0.50 doubling per 1M DESO sold, paid in BTC) raised about 5k BTC before a hard fork closed it. Al-Naji announced the sale as a $200M raise with Sequoia, a16z, Coinbase Ventures, Winklevoss Capital and others buying DESO through it (The Block, Sept 2021).
Since Revolution PoS (2024), the only new issuance is the staking APY paid to everyone who stakes with validators, and the docs say there are no other DESO sources. Earlier PoW block rewards went to miners. No foundation or treasury cut.
Figures are the project's own rounded percentages. The bonding curve was public, but large funds bought into it, so the 'public' label covers both. US charges against founder Nader Al-Naji (2024) were dropped in Feb 2025.
Sources: docs.deso.org · docs.deso.org · theblock.co · en.wikipedia.org. 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.
Decentralized Social is #149 among cryptocurrencies and #998 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 849 places between Decentralized Social'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).