Crypto Bubbles explained: how to read the bubble map

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Crypto Bubbles is a free website and app that displays the crypto market as a field of coloured bubbles. Each bubble represents a coin; by default its size shows how much the price has moved over the selected period, and its colour shows the direction: green for gains, red for losses. That lets you see in seconds which coins are standing out. What the map does not show is whether a coin is good, large or cheap. This is precisely where most misunderstandings arise.

According to its own description, Crypto Bubbles covers the top 1,200 cryptocurrencies, with price, market capitalisation and performance. The site is available in German and 16 other languages. For investors it is therefore a quick gauge of market sentiment, but not an analysis tool in the strict sense. Anyone wanting to compare coins also needs metrics, price history and an exchange with an EU licence. Which platforms go deeper is listed at the end of this article.

What is Crypto Bubbles? The bubble map for 1,200 cryptocurrencies

Crypto Bubbles is a so-called heatmap, a display that makes many values readable at once through colour and area. Classic heatmaps arrange tiles in a grid. Crypto Bubbles instead uses round bubbles that move around the screen, bump into each other and grow or shrink with each data update. It feels playful, and that is one of the reasons the tool has become so well known among crypto investors.

It is easy to use. You open the site in a browser or the app on your smartphone and immediately see the bubble field for the largest coins. Clicking a bubble opens a window with price, rank, market capitalisation, trading volume and a price history. For the price history, a TradingView chart can be displayed. From there, links lead to exchanges, blockchain explorers and data sites such as CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap. Below the bubble field there is also a classic table with rank, name, price, market capitalisation and daily change.

Crypto Bubbles and the crypto bubble: two different things

The name often leads searches astray. A crypto bubble is an economic term: prices rise through speculation, media hype and herd behaviour far beyond what usage or earnings can justify, until the bubble bursts. Examples include the surge of 2017 with the crash of 2018, or the 2021 rally with the 2022 slump. Crypto Bubbles, the tool, shares only the name. The bubbles on the map are a display device and say nothing about whether a coin is overvalued. A large green bubble is therefore no sign of a speculative bubble, and a red map is no proof that one has burst. The map shows the market mood of the moment, nothing more.

The iOS app is free in the German App Store but contains in-app purchases. It is rated 4.7 out of 5 stars there from 128 ratings (as of November 6). The App Store names MEXC Fintech, Inc. as the provider of the app, a company linked to the crypto exchange of the same name. More on this below, because it matters for how to interpret the buy buttons.

Bubble size and colour: how Crypto Bubbles displays price changes

The most important rule for reading the map is this: by default, the size of a bubble measures performance, meaning the percentage price change over the selected period. A coin that falls 15 percent in 24 hours gets a large red bubble. A coin that barely moves shrinks to a small dot, even if it is worth billions.

The colour shows the sign. Green means up, red means down, and the stronger the shade, the bigger the move. If you have red-green colour blindness or simply prefer other colours, you can switch to other pairs: yellow and blue, purple and blue, or orange and turquoise. There is also a neutral colouring and a choice between a modern dark design and the site's original colours.

By default, each bubble shows the coin's ticker and the percentage. This too can be changed: instead of the percentage, the bubble can show the price, rank or market capitalisation. That is handy if you just want to know where a particular coin stands without opening the table.

What a large bubble really means

A large bubble means only one thing: the price has moved a lot. Whether the coin is large, heavily traded or whether the move is sustainable cannot be read from it. Small coins with thin order books in particular often swing by double digits, because a handful of buys or sells is enough to shift the price. On the map they then appear more prominent than Bitcoin.

Time frames from one minute to one year: the map's ten periods

Which move the bubbles show depends on the selected period. Crypto Bubbles offers ten periods: one minute, five minutes, 15 minutes, one hour, four hours, one day, one week, one month, three months and one year. The table below the map shows the change from the previous day.

The period changes the picture fundamentally. Over one hour the market often looks calm, because most coins move less than one percent. Over a year, by contrast, the big outliers dominate, such as coins that have multiplied or lost almost all their value. If you do not choose the period deliberately, you can easily end up comparing apples with oranges: a green weekly map and a red daily map can both be true at the same time.

For most retail investors, the day and week are the most sensible settings. The minute periods mainly show noise, random swings with no meaning. They are aimed more at traders dealing in short-term moves, and even there a bubble does not replace a chart with volume and order book.

Market cap, volume and dominance: the other size metrics

Bubble size does not have to show the price change. In the settings you can link it to other metrics. The site defines them as follows:

Market capitalisation: the total value of all coins in circulation, calculated as price times circulating supply.
Trading volume (24 hours): the equivalent value in US dollars traded in the coin over the last 24 hours.
Dominance: a coin's share of the market capitalisation of the entire crypto market, in percent.
Rank: the position by market capitalisation, with rank 1 being the largest coin.

If you switch size to market capitalisation, the picture changes abruptly. Bitcoin then fills a large part of the area, followed by Ethereum and the big stablecoins, while small coins shrink to dots. This view is closer to the economic significance of the coins. The colour still shows the price direction, so you see both at once: how big a coin is and how it is currently performing.

Trading volume is the third useful view. It shows where money is actually flowing right now. A coin with a large price move but tiny volume is a warning sign: the swing then rests on a few trades and can vanish just as quickly. We worked through how market capitalisation and volume relate for the 25 largest coins in October.

Friday morning on the bubble map: 73 of 100 large coins in the red

Friday morning, November 6, showed what the map looks like on a weak day. After the sell-off on equity markets the day before, 73 of the 100 largest coins were down on a daily basis and only seven were up. Bitcoin stood at around $75,600, 5.9 percent lower than the previous day, Ethereum lost 8.1 percent to around $2,230 and XRP 8.4 percent to around $1.20. The steepest drop among the top 100 was LayerZero's 11.2 percent.

On the map, this produces an almost entirely red field with many medium-sized bubbles. The seven green bubbles stood out but were small: the biggest gain was 4.1 percent. Anyone looking only at the colour reads a broad sell-off from this, and that was accurate that morning. A look at the table, however, shows something else: 20 of the 100 largest assets did not move at all. These are mostly stablecoins such as Tether, USDC or Dai and tokenised money market funds whose price is pegged to the dollar.

Why stablecoins almost disappear from the map

A stablecoin is a token whose value is pegged to a currency such as the US dollar. Because its price barely fluctuates, it gets a tiny bubble in the performance view, even though Tether, with a market capitalisation of around $178 billion, is the third-largest asset in the entire crypto market. Yet stablecoins are central to the question of where investors' money is flowing: anyone switching from Bitcoin into dollar tokens during a sell-off moves capital without the map showing it. Stablecoins can be hidden in the settings so they do not fill the field with dots.

The limits of the heatmap: where the bubble display misleads

Crypto Bubbles is good at conveying a feel for the moment. On its own, however, the map is unsuitable for decisions, for several reasons.

First, context is missing. A red bubble shows that the price has fallen, but not why. A hack, a token unlock, a delisting announcement and a general market decline all look the same on the map. You will only find the reason in the news, in the project's announcements or in on-chain data.

Second, the percentage scale distorts. Ten percent for a coin with a $50 million market capitalisation is something entirely different from ten percent for Bitcoin. By default, both bubbles look the same size. Anyone concluding from this that a small coin is running "just as strongly" as Bitcoin overlooks the risk.

Third, the map rewards outliers. The largest bubbles often belong to coins that are currently rising or falling sharply. That invites you to chase the strongest mover. This behaviour has a name: FOMO, the fear of missing out. Buying decisions driven by FOMO often come too late, namely when the big move has already happened.

Fourth, the selection is limited. The map covers the largest 1,200 or so coins. New tokens traded only on decentralised exchanges appear only once they reach that threshold. Conversely, the map also shows coins that you cannot buy at all on an exchange licensed in Germany.

Buy buttons and app provider: separating information from advertising

In a coin's detail window, Crypto Bubbles offers buttons for trading. The links lead to exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, Bitget, KuCoin and MEXC. In addition, the App Store lists MEXC Fintech, Inc. as the provider of the iOS app. In itself, this is nothing unusual: many free crypto tools are financed through advertising, referrals or proximity to a trading venue. For you, though, it means reading the buy buttons as an offer and not as a neutral recommendation.

This matters above all because of regulation. Since the end of the transition periods, providers of crypto services in the EU need a licence under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, MiCA for short. A MiCA licence is the authorisation from a European supervisory authority to offer crypto services such as trading or custody across the entire single market. The bubble map does not show whether a trading venue holds one. The European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA, maintains a public register of licensed providers for this purpose. You will find an overview of licensed exchanges in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.

Watchlist, categories and blocklist: the Crypto Bubbles filters

Crypto Bubbles only becomes truly useful once you narrow down the field. Three tools help. With a watchlist you create your own lists, for example of the coins you hold or follow. The map then shows only those bubbles, and you can see at a glance how your own holdings are moving. Using categories you filter by sector, such as stablecoins or thematic areas. With the blocklist you permanently hide individual coins, for example stablecoins or tokens that do not interest you.

Several views can be saved as separate configurations and used side by side. A sensible split for retail investors: one map with your own holdings on a daily view, a second with the top 100 by market capitalisation, a third with weekly performance. That way you avoid letting the most colourful bubble dictate your attention.

Crypto Bubbles alongside the Altcoin Season Index and market data: one tool among several

Crypto Bubbles answers one question well: what is moving right now, and in which direction? For the next questions you need other tools. Whether Bitcoin or the altcoins are currently ahead is shown by the Altcoin Season Index. How to read it, and why only 17 of 50 coins beat Bitcoin on October 23, we set out in our guide to altcoin season. A sortable overview with price, market capitalisation and change over several periods is provided by our top coins page.

When assessing an individual coin, what counts is data that no bubble map shows: the tokenomics, meaning how many coins exist and when locked holdings are released, the distribution among large holders, a protocol's revenue and development activity. Analytics platforms and blockchain explorers go considerably deeper here. Crypto Bubbles is the entry point that draws your attention to a coin, not the check of whether it fits your portfolio.

Who the bubble map is worthwhile for

Crypto Bubbles is most useful for investors who want a quick overview without being able to read charts. For a daily glance in the morning or after major news, the map is ideal: if the whole market is red, a move affects all coins. If only one bubble is red, that coin has a problem of its own. This distinction between market moves and individual moves is the real strength of the tool.

Crypto Bubbles is less suitable for long-term investors with a savings plan. Anyone investing a fixed amount in Bitcoin or Ethereum every month does not need to track daily moves, and a red map is more likely to tempt you into hasty sales. For investors in Germany, tax also comes into play: gains on crypto assets are tax-free after a holding period of one year. Anyone selling because of a red bubble before this period expires gives up that advantage.

Crypto Bubbles: the bubble shows the swing, not the reason

The map is a good sentiment gauge and a poor adviser. Three steps turn the colourful picture into useful information:

Set the size deliberately: switch between performance and market capitalisation and hide stablecoins. If you want to analyse in more depth, you will find suitable tools in the comparison of analytics platforms.
Check the exchange before buying: do not buy via the first button you see, but from a provider with a MiCA licence. A selection is listed in the comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
Alerts instead of constant monitoring: if you do not want to watch the map all the time, you can use price alerts or automated rules. The solutions available are shown in the comparison of crypto trading bots.

(As of November 6, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Frequently asked questions about Crypto Bubbles

Crypto Bubbles is a free website and app that displays the roughly 1,200 largest cryptocurrencies as bubbles. By default, the size of a bubble shows the price change over the selected period and the colour shows the direction: green for gains, red for losses.

On Crypto Bubbles, bubble size measures the percentage price move by default, not the value of a coin. A small coin down 15 percent therefore appears larger than Bitcoin down 2 percent. Size can be switched to market cap, trading volume, dominance, price or rank.

Yes. The Crypto Bubbles website is free to use, and the iOS app is free in the German App Store but includes in-app purchases. The App Store lists MEXC Fintech, Inc. as the provider of the iOS app.

No. A crypto bubble is a speculative price excess, as in 2017 or 2021. Crypto Bubbles uses bubbles only as a display device and says nothing about whether a coin is overvalued.

Crypto Bubbles offers ten periods: one, five and 15 minutes, one and four hours, one day, one week, one month, three months and one year. For retail investors, the day and week views are usually the most meaningful.

Transparency note: This article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by our editorial team before publication. All figures and claims were checked against the primary sources linked in the text. The feature image was generated with AI.

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