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Upcoming Changes to Market Cap Rankings and API for Rehypothecated Tokens

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At CoinGecko, we are committed to providing the most accurate and independent cryptocurrency data in the industry. As the DeFi landscape evolves, so too must our methodologies for tracking and ranking assets. Today, we are announcing an important update regarding how we categorize and rank rehypothecated tokens such as wrapped assets and liquid staking tokens to ensure our market capitalization data remains a true reflection of the market’s value.

Here is what is changing, why it matters, and how you can prepare.

What Is a Rehypothecated Token?

In the context of crypto, “rehypothecated tokens” refer to tokens that represent a claim on another underlying, typically native, crypto asset. In layman’s language they are an IOU for tokens. 

Rehypothecated tokens are minted when a user locks a crypto asset within a smart contract or a centralized entity. This can be an exchange or a DeFi application. For example when a user supplies their USDC to the lending protocol Aave, they are provided an equivalent amount of aUSDC tokens in return. aUSDC is considered a rehypothecated token; Or when a user deposits BTC to Coinbase and wants to withdraw it on Ethereum, they are issued cbBTC. 

Common examples of rehypothecated tokens include:

  • Wrapped Tokens: WETH (Wrapped ETH), WPOL (Wrapped POL)

  • Liquid Staked Tokens (LSTs): stETH (Lido Staked ETH), jitoSOL (Jito Staked SOL)

  • DeFi Liquidity Tokens: 3CRV (Curve 3-pool LP tokens), aUSDC (Aave USDC)

  • Bridged Tokens: WBTC (Wrapped BTC), axlUSDC (Axelar Bridged USDC)

Beyond just representing a claim on an underlying crypto asset, a rehypothecated token may also have additional features. For example certain rehypothecated tokens also provide a claim to yield when it is redeemed. Wrapped tokens may make certain assets easier to integrate into onchain protocols. It is also possible to see rehypothecated tokens on rehypothecated tokens — for example wstETH (Wrapped Lido Staked ETH), depending on the use case required. 

A rehypothecated token is typically burned when it is redeemed for its underlying asset, similar to how an IOU would function. 

It is important to understand that while some rehypothecated tokens may claim to maintain some form of 1:1 value peg to their underlying asset, there are risks involved in blindly assuming so. The main risk vector involves the centralized entity or smart contract where the native asset is locked. Any losses to the underlying asset can cause the “peg” to break and the prices to deviate. This is the primary reason why CoinGecko tracks these rehypothecated tokens separately.

Why Are We Making These Changes?

CoinGecko currently displays rehypothecated tokens alongside all other tokens, and largely treats them the same. We track their circulating supply and calculate their market cap based on the price, and rank them alongside all other tokens in our coin rankings. However as the market evolves, this has given rise to two new issues. 

Firstly, given the pace of rehypothecated tokens being created, and the relative ease of obtaining large market caps without actually having to inject new capital into the crypto market, we have noticed a notable uptick in the number of rehypothecated tokens being added to our site, particularly at the top of our coin rankings. Today, nearly 20% of our Top 100 coins are now rehypothecated tokens. This has diminished our ability to showcase truly native crypto tokens / assets, which have seen their rankings diminish, and made it harder for our users to gauge and compare the relative size of these projects at a glance. 

Secondly, it is important to note that we currently already exclude the market cap of rehypothecated tokens from our Total Crypto Market Cap calculation. As rehypothecated tokens are derived from native tokens, this prevents us from effectively double counting the market cap of certain tokens, especially those of the majors such as BTC, ETH, SOL, stablecoins etc. However this approach has not been consistently applied downwards to our categories market cap. For certain categories that have a heavier presence of rehypothecated tokens, this has resulted in an inflated category market cap, providing an artificially inflated view of the size of the sector. 

What Changes are Coming to CoinGecko and API?

We are introducing changes to both CoinGecko and our API to strictly separate these asset classes.

Changes to CoinGecko (Website & App)

We are updating our default views to prioritize primary assets while still giving you access to rehypothecated data when you need it.

  1. Top Market Cap Ranking Changes: By default, rehypothecated tokens will be removed from the main Top Market Cap ranking homepage.

  2. New Dedicated Ranking: We aren’t deleting the data. You can view the old ranking style, which includes rehypothecated tokens, on a newly created dedicated page on the website.

  3. Rehypothecated Market Cap Rank Label: On individual coin pages, rehypothecated tokens will display a clear label indicating their status. You will still see their market cap rank, but it will be contextually labeled (e.g., “Rank #X (Rehypothecated)”).

  4. Category Market Cap Accuracy: Rehypothecated token market caps will now be excluded from Category Total Market Cap calculations. This corrects the inflation issue and provides a “real” view of a category’s size.

Important: CoinGecko API Breaking Changes

If you are a developer or use our API for data fetching, please pay close attention to the following breaking changes.

  1. /coins/markets Endpoint Update

    1. Default Behavior: This endpoint will now exclude rehypothecated tokens from the response list by default.

    2. Legacy Support (Transition): If your application requires rehypothecated tokens in this list, you can retain the old behavior by passing the parameter: include_rehypothecated=true We recommend updating your calls ahead of the effective date to avoid service disruption. For rehypothecated tokens, the market_cap_rank field will now return null, while market_cap value continues to be displayed.

  2. /coins/markets?category Endpoint Update

    1. Other ways of getting rehypothecated tokens would be to pass in a category. When a category param is passed in, all coins including rehypothecated tokens will be returned. For rehypothecated tokens, the market_cap_rank field will now return null, while market_cap value continues to be displayed.

  3. /coins/<id> Endpoint Update

    1. Rank Changes: For any rehypothecated token queried via this endpoint, the market_cap_rank field will return null.

    2. New Field: We are introducing a new field, market_cap_rank_with_rehypothecated, which will provide the ranking value that includes these tokens.

    3. Transition: Your application will need to read from market_cap_rank_with_rehypothecated to continue displaying market cap.

Effective Date

These changes are scheduled to go live on February 4th, 2026.

We believe these updates are a necessary step toward a more mature and accurate data landscape for the crypto industry. We appreciate your continued support as we refine our product to serve you better.

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