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Get Top Coins by Market Cap with the CoinMarketCap API

Use this workflow when you want a ranked market list rather than a quote for a known set of assets.

Best starting endpoint

Start with GET /v3/cryptocurrency/listings/latest.

This endpoint is built for sorted, paginated lists of active cryptocurrencies.

Minimal example

This example fetches the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap in USD.

Code
curl -G 'https://pro-api.coinmarketcap.com/v3/cryptocurrency/listings/latest' \
  --data-urlencode 'start=1' \
  --data-urlencode 'limit=10' \
  --data-urlencode 'convert=USD' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H 'X-CMC_PRO_API_KEY: YOUR_API_KEY'

What you get back

• data: an array of ranked cryptocurrency records
• cmc_rank: CoinMarketCap rank
• quote.USD.price: current price
• quote.USD.market_cap: market cap
• quote.USD.volume_24h: 24h volume

Truncated response showing the first 2 items of a limit=10 request:

Code
{
  "status": {
    "timestamp": "2025-01-15T12:00:00.000Z",
    "error_code": 0,
    "error_message": null,
    "elapsed": 10,
    "credit_count": 1
  },
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "name": "Bitcoin",
      "symbol": "BTC",
      "slug": "bitcoin",
      "cmc_rank": 1,
      "circulating_supply": 19800000,
      "max_supply": 21000000,
      "last_updated": "2025-01-15T12:00:00.000Z",
      "quote": {
        "USD": {
          "price": 99150.42,
          "volume_24h": 32500000000,
          "percent_change_24h": 2.34,
          "market_cap": 1963178316000,
          "last_updated": "2025-01-15T12:00:00.000Z"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "id": 1027,
      "name": "Ethereum",
      "symbol": "ETH",
      "slug": "ethereum",
      "cmc_rank": 2,
      "circulating_supply": 120500000,
      "max_supply": null,
      "last_updated": "2025-01-15T12:00:00.000Z",
      "quote": {
        "USD": {
          "price": 3280.15,
          "volume_24h": 18200000000,
          "percent_change_24h": 1.62,
          "market_cap": 395258075000,
          "last_updated": "2025-01-15T12:00:00.000Z"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Use this when

• You are building a homepage market table
• You need the top 10, top 100, or another ranked slice of the market
• You want to paginate through market-wide results

Common mistakes

• Using quotes/latest when you actually need a market-wide ranked list
• Requesting much more data than you need for the first page of a UI
• Assuming symbols are enough for follow-up workflows instead of saving the returned id

Good next steps

• Adjust start and limit for pagination
• Add filters like sort, cryptocurrency_type, and market-cap thresholds when you need narrower market views
• Use Get latest crypto prices if you already know the assets you want
• Use Best practices if you plan to cache ranked market data for a larger product