Earlier this week, CoinGecko held an AMA on r/CryptoCurrency. We’ve picked out some highlights from the session here, so if you’ve ever had a burning question for us, check out the questions below to see if we’ve answered it!
Note: Some questions have been edited for length and clarity.
Weirdcrypto: What are the metrics you look at before determining to list a coin on your website?
At CoinGecko, we take a curated approach to listing cryptocurrencies and tokens. The exact criteria is not disclosed to avoid it being gamed but this Methodology page (under Listing Criteria) provides some of the criteria that we use to evaluate.
Our team also manually checks each token for sufficient liquidity and volume on DEXes and also checks for suspicious functions on smart contracts. The obvious rugs are not added while those with dubious functions, we will add warnings such as the warnings on Variable Taxes.
Our second product, GeckoTerminal takes on a non-curated approach to listing tokens. With GeckoTerminal, we list ALL tokens traded on DEXes. Currently we track 65 Layer 1/2 Networks, 331 DEXes and over 1 million tokens on GeckoTerminal. This includes all tokens with low volume and liquidity.
Only a fraction of tokens found on GeckoTerminal is added on CoinGecko.
TNGSystems: I’ve been using CoinGecko since forever, as I always found the data to be very accurate. What would you say gives your aggregator the edge over CMC?
CoinGecko is independent! We are a self-funded business and don’t have any exchanges as our investor. This allows us to be impartial when it comes to displaying crypto data.
ultron290196: Will you guys ever consider turning Candies into a cryptocurrency?
This is an excellent question! No immediate plans for the time being yet but we are monitoring closely the experiment that Reddit is doing with this subreddit (r/CryptoCurrency) and the MOON token. I think what you guys have going on here is very interesting and we are seeing the lessons that we can learn over here as well! We will be looking to add more benefits to our Candies so that you can redeem more interesting items from CoinGecko and partners.
We also like Supaflyray’s suggestion about using candies for raffles and auctions for cool items, and Intelligent_Page2732’s idea about making NFT redemptions available for various candy balances!
SJHarrison1992: Been using your API for a while now for bits and bobs ,so firstly thank you! Is there a feature in the pipeline that you are all especially excited about?
We are excited about the developments happening on GeckoTerminal. GeckoTerminal is our attempt to better track on-chain data and the growing number of tokens. So far, we are tracking 65 Layer 1/2 Networks, 331 DEXes and over 1 million tokens. The private API of GeckoTerminal is now already powering CoinGecko data for various DEXes. As we further battle test the API, we hope to expose the API to the public in the medium term. You can then get a lot more data from our API!
Also, campbellxtfh is one keen observer! They noticed that we’ve newly added NFT endpoints.
Kappatalizable: Why did you choose the name CoinGecko and not CoinDoggo or CoinInu? Do you guys have a Gecko pet in your office?
When we wanted to start CoinGecko back in 2014, we wanted a .com domain with a cute animal mascot to go along with it. We searched for various permutations for Coin<mascot>.com to see which were available.
There was CoinGecko and CoinTeddy available for registration. However, CoinTeddy won’t work because who wants to be in a forever “bear” market. Gecko is a cute reptile so we thought why not, let’s go with it! It’s now our favorite pet! 🦎
RED_BULLish_Crypto: How does CoinGecko make money?
Currently we make money from 4 sources – advertising, affiliates, API subscriptions and Premium subscriptions.
HyperIndian: Are you seeing much lower volumes of users on your platforms?
Yes, we are seeing our user numbers drop significantly during this bear market. But it’s not surprising. Our usage levels correlate very closely with BTC price and it’s down roughly *ahem* 70+% like all other cryptocurrencies. This is in line to the previous bear cycles as well and we are totally expecting this.
Jwinterm: I have seen you starting to host NFT conferences, and also include NFT marketdata. Do you still see NFTs as a major area of growth for CoinGecko?
Yes! We see NFTs playing a major role for CoinGecko in the coming years. We see a future where anything that can be tokenized, will be tokenized. This means we will see a world with millions of fungible and non-fungible tokens!
At CoinGecko, we now track NFT floor prices! So far we have NFTs on Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Klaytn. We are looking to add Solana soon as well. If you guys notice any missing NFTs, do send a request on our Request Form.
We hope to further improve our NFT section and there’s a lot of interesting data points surrounding NFTs!
And finally, Lisecjedekokos: How many people work at CoinGecko?
55 people work at CoinGecko spread across our two offices in Malaysia and Singapore.