What Waves represents
Waves is an exchange-issued utility token, currently ranked 335th by market capitalization among the assets we track. Waves is an exchange-issued utility token: its value is tied to a specific trading platform and the perks that platform grants holders — fee discounts, launchpad access, and sometimes token burns funded by exchange revenue.
Waves (WAVES) is a blockchain platform that enables users to create, transfer, and trade various digital assets and applications through custom tokens. It offers a user-friendly interface and tools for developers, enhancing the overall blockchain experience.
How the token captures exchange value
Because Waves depends on one operator, counterparty and regulatory risk concentrate here. The token's value is essentially a leveraged bet on that exchange's continued dominance.
Under the hood, WAVES secures its ledger with Leased Proof of Stake, built on the LPoS algorithm.
Background & fundamentals
Waves first went live in 2016, giving it roughly 10 years of on-chain price history to draw on. Waves operates under a centralized structure, which concentrates protocol decisions in an identifiable issuer or foundation. A documented core team of 14 contributors is listed publicly, a depth of disclosed staffing many long-tail tokens lack.
Its codebase is open-source, meaning the implementation can be audited rather than taken on trust. The project publishes a whitepaper documenting its original design, which is worth reading before sizing any position in WAVES. CoinPaprika classifies the project's development status as "Working product".
In sector terms it is most often filed under Platform, Token Issuance, and Social Network.
Where Waves sits in the market
At $0.2631, Waves carries a market capitalization of $31.28M. Around $5.90M changes hands across exchanges in a typical 24-hour window. That is a turnover of about 18.87% of the float — elevated, often a sign of narrative-driven trading.
Waves carries no fixed maximum supply; issuance follows a programmatic schedule rather than a hard cap. WAVES remains -100% beneath its all-time high of $62.71, the kind of gap that historically takes a full cycle or a fresh catalyst to close.
What the price history shows
Recent moves read 24-hour -0.27%, 7-day -5.08%, 30-day -9.17%, 1-year -69.49%. Across roughly the last 365 days of daily candles, WAVES endured a peak-to-trough drawdown of about 77% before stabilizing.
Volatility profile
Recent action puts Waves in the Low-volatility band — it has been relatively stable, with moves typical of large-cap, mature assets. Over the last 30 days the move totals -9.17%, a useful input for stop placement and position sizing.
How to evaluate an exchange token like Waves
For an asset of this type, three lenses matter most:
- Exchange health — the trading volume, market share, and regulatory standing of the platform behind WAVES.
- Burn or buyback policy — how exchange revenue translates into reduced WAVES supply over time.
- Concentration risk — how dependent the token is on a single venue, and what happens if that venue stumbles.
This page pulls live market data, on-chain stats where available, exchange-by-exchange volume, and our forecast model into one view so you can work through those questions in a single place. None of it is investment advice — it is a structured starting point for your own research.
