Circulating Supply
The number of units of an asset currently held by the public and able to move, excluding locked or reserved units.
Circulating supply is an estimate, not a value the blockchain publishes. Data providers build it by starting from the units that exist and subtracting what their rules say is not in public hands: tokens still inside vesting contracts, treasury and foundation allocations that have never been distributed, unclaimed airdrop reserves, and provably destroyed units. The equity world calls the same idea free float, but there the share count is audited and exchange rules govern it, while here the number depends on issuer disclosure and address tagging that no regulator checks. It matters because circulating supply is the denominator of market capitalization, so a provider changing its rules moves headline figures without anything happening on-chain.
En pratique
Tokens held in a vesting contract that releases monthly for four years are normally excluded from circulating supply until each tranche unlocks.
Le malentendu courant
Circulating supply is a provider's estimate assembled from disclosed schedules and labeled addresses, not an objective quantity the chain reports.
Le chiffre auquel cela correspond
The number of tokens a data provider judges to be available and freely transferable today.
Limites: Circulating supply is a judgment, not an observation: providers apply different rules for foundation wallets, unvested team allocations, and tokens sent to addresses with no known key, and they revise those rules without notice, which shifts market capitalization overnight with no on-chain event…