The Real Float starts from the twenty-one million and works downwards to what somebody could realistically purchase, setting aside coin still unissued, coin nobody can reach, coin parked with identifiable institutions, and coin that has simply gone quiet.

The answer is deliberately an upper bound. That choice is the most important thing to understand about the view, and it follows from a problem the ladder cannot avoid.

What it actually measures

Each rung removes a category of coin that is not realistically available. What survives to the bottom is a ceiling on liquidity: the most that could plausibly be bought rather than a figure anyone expects to trade.

One deduction dominates the rest and the panel says which. Whether institutions or the sleeping pile is doing the heavy lifting is what accounts for the size of that step.

The categories overlap, so the honest answer is a ceiling

Coin parked with a fund is very often coin that has gone quiet as well. Deducting it under both headings would strike the same holding off twice and leave a figure below the truth, so only the bigger of the two deductions is taken.

That decision errs towards removing slightly too little, which is what makes the result a ceiling rather than an estimate. A view that quietly double counted would produce a more dramatic number and a less true one, and the choice to be less dramatic is deliberate.

Free Float: the supply that matters is the supply that will actually sell

Supply leaving the float is supply being locked away by holders who have shown no sign of parting with it. What remains is what a buyer actually has to compete for.

Comparing capital against the whole supply assumes every coin is for sale at some price. Most of them are not, at least not at any price on the current screen, and the arithmetic that ignores this overstates how much money a market can absorb.

Setting aside the holdings that never move leaves a far smaller pool to compare against, and a far more useful one. It is what explains how modest amounts of capital have repriced this entire market again and again.

What it does not tell you

How long silence must last before it counts is a decision somebody made, not something the chain reveals. Demand a longer silence and fewer holdings qualify, which deducts less and leaves more available, and sensible people would pick differently. What comes out is therefore a range of answers with a dial attached rather than one number.

Adjusting the loss scenario occasionally changes precisely nothing on screen. Where the sleeping pile is doing the heavy lifting it already takes in the very holdings that scenario disputes, so the deductions simply shuffle between headings instead of the total moving. It looks like a control that has stopped working and it is arithmetic behaving properly.

How to read it

Loose float. More coin is realistically available than usual.

Ordinary float. What could realistically be bought sits where it usually sits.

Tight float. Hardly anything could realistically be bought, so identical demand shifts price a good deal further.

The Real Float belongs to the Supply dashboard, along with The 21M Distribution, LTH Supply and RHODL Ratio.

Common questions

Why is this called a ceiling rather than a figure?

Because the headings overlap. Coin parked with a fund is often quiet coin too, so only the bigger deduction is taken rather than both, which deliberately errs towards deducting a little too little.

Which deduction is doing the most work?

Which of the two is doing the heavy lifting at the final step, institutions or the sleeping pile. That is what accounts for the size of it.

Why does changing an estimate sometimes not move the float?

Because where the sleeping pile is doing the heavy lifting it already takes in the very holdings that scenario disputes, so the deductions shuffle between headings instead of the total moving.

What happens when the dormancy setting moves?

How long silence must last before a holding counts as unavailable. Demand a longer silence and fewer holdings qualify, which deducts less and leaves more available.

Does a tight float mean price rises?

No. It means the same demand moves price further, in either direction. And it is a ceiling on liquidity rather than an order book, so it describes the structure demand arrives into rather than a number to trade against.

What counts as removed from the pool?

Coins in the hands of holders the dashboard can positively mark as long-term. Anything it cannot mark stays on the available side, which keeps the estimate on the cautious side of the truth.

Is the figure exact?

Nothing here claims to be. Marking a holding as long-term is a judgement, coins dormant for years do occasionally wake, and the cautious method means the true pool is smaller than the one drawn.