One of the most common beginner mistakes is judging a cryptocurrency by its unit price. A coin priced at a few cents is not automatically “cheaper” — or a better deal — than one priced in the thousands.
Price is only half the equation
What matters is market capitalization: the unit price multiplied by the number of coins in circulation. Two coins can trade at very different unit prices yet have similar valuations, simply because they have very different supplies.
An example
Imagine Coin A trades at $1 with 1 billion coins in circulation — a $1 billion market cap. Coin B trades at $50,000 with 20,000 coins in circulation — also a $1 billion market cap. Despite a 50,000× difference in unit price, the two are valued identically by the market.
Why this matters
For a low-priced coin to “reach $100,” its market cap would often need to exceed that of the entire crypto market many times over — which is why unit-price targets can be misleading. Always look at market cap to understand scale.