CoinMarketCap Introduces Liquidity Metric In Bid To Increase Data Transparency

CoinMarketCap is changing things up. If you’re wondering why your favorite altcoin is still ranked at three-hundred-something, you’re probably not alone.

Ranking projects is a complicated measurement affected by a variety of data points, including total eventual supply, circulating supply, and others: in the past, some of the factors influencing ranking have been gamed through practices such as wash trading (essentially the practice of trading against oneself) to create artificial volume – and while this in itself doesn’t translate to a larger market cap in reality, it can temporarily fool the ranking algorithm into displaying a particular token in a ranking system.

However, one of the leading sources of market data is now taking steps to un-rig the game. CoinMarketCap has announced a change in ranking methodology, in order “to represent cryptoassets more fairly.” The new metrics will be officially announced on Monday, September 2nd, with a full launch taking place on November 12, 2019.

The crypto industry has recognized wash trading as a major issue for some time; however, obvious solutions necessarily represent obvious opportunities for unethical exchanges or other market participants to simply find new ways to regain their unfair advantage.

In fact, as Carylyne Chan, Head of Strategy noted, “In July we introduced an internal feature that would exclude cryptoassets from being eligible to be ranked in the Top 200 if they did not meet the criteria laid out in Section 10 of our methodology,”

But she also acknowledged that “Due to the segmentation logic of this change, some cryptoassets that did not meet the criteria had harsher-than-intended rank drops.”

You've spoken, we've heard! We will be testing a change in our ranking methodology on Monday, Sept. 2, to represent all cryptoassets more fairly. Please see the full details here: https://t.co/oOFfcliqG5