Regulators require pricing methodology to be verifiable
MiCA requires CASPs to demonstrate transparent market data sourcing, and FASB ASU 2023-08 mandates fair value measurement
Unfiltered aggregation produces unreliable prices
Aggregating across exchanges without filtering for fake volume or manipulation produces a number that looks precise, but isn't
Most providers gate or have undisclosed methodologies
When pricing methodology is not publicly accessible, evaluators have no way to independently verify the accuracy of the published price
Derive the Bitcoin Price Index
CoinGecko first calculates a Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) by averaging BTC prices across reputed exchanges. The volume-weighted average price (VWAP) becomes the single reference point for every other coin.
Select the top 600 most liquid trading pairs for each coin
For each coin, CoinGecko ranks every active trading pair by volume and selects the top 600. Low-volume pairs on smaller exchanges are excluded. Prices are normalized to a common base via BPI.
Remove price outliers
The Median Absolute Deviation (MAD) algorithm identifies exchange prices that deviate significantly from the majority and removes them before aggregation. For coins with fewer than 3 tickers, any price change over 100x is flagged.
Aggregate into the published price
Remaining tickers are combined using a volume-weighted average, so higher-volume exchanges carry more weight in the final number. The result is the published price, traceable to every contributing exchange, its Trust Score, and the exact timestamp.
Filter exchange volumes
CoinGecko applies the same filtering to exchange volumes: blacklisted pairs are excluded, and pairs inactive for over 3 hours are dropped. Reported 24h volume figures reflect only active, filtered trading data.
Published outlier detection for self-serve evaluation
Our MAD-based filtering methodology is publicly documented. From methodology to independent audits, everything you need to evaluate us is publicly accessible.
SOC 2 Type I & SOC 2 Type II Certified
Independent audit verifies security controls, data integrity, and operational processes meet enterprise governance standards.
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