Cap (CAP), the token of a stablecoin credit protocol backed by Franklin Templeton, listed on Bithumb on June 30, 2026 and on Upbit on August 6. CoinGecko now also shows CAP/USD markets on Coinbase Exchange and Kraken. The token set a record of $0.1008 on October 6 and traded at $0.0732 on October 7.

Where it stands

Upbit announced CAP at 10:55 a.m. Korea time on August 6 and opened trading at 2 p.m. against KRW, BTC and USDT. Deposits and withdrawals ran on Ethereum only. Upbit blocked buy orders for about five minutes and allowed only limit orders for the first two hours, its usual damper for fresh listings.

The market did not wait for Upbit's own order book. Within a minute of the announcement CAP jumped about 34.5 percent on Bithumb, from 39.48 won ($0.0278) to 53.1 won ($0.0374), BigGo reported. Bithumb had carried the token since June 30, so a second Korean venue moved the price double digits five weeks after the first.

Since then CAP has gained further. CoinGecko shows $0.0732 on October 7, with a market cap near $114 million and a 30-day gain of about 59 percent. Its Coinbase Exchange and Kraken markets are both CAP/USD pairs. We found no announcement from either exchange, so no listing date is recorded for them.

CAP 24-hour volume by venue, October 7
$0M $10M $20M $30M Upbit: $34.2M $34.2MUpbit Bybit: $15.59M $15.59MBybit Bithumb: $8.38M $8.38MBithumb KuCoin: $2.82M $2.82MKuCoin Coinbase: $2.68M $2.68MCoinbase Kraken: $1.43M $1.43MKraken
Figure 01Converted 24-hour volume on CoinGecko for six CAP venues on October 7, 2026, in millions of US dollars. Upbit and Bithumb are the Korean won pairs, Coinbase and Kraken the US dollar pairs.

Two won markets in five weeks is a fast venue ladder for a protocol this young. Bithumb's June 30 listing gave CAP its first direct won access and an initial round of price discovery. Upbit carries the deeper book and the larger retail base, and Korean traders tend to treat an Upbit follow-on as validation of a Bithumb experiment. The October volume data fits that view: Upbit's won pair trades about four times the volume of Bithumb's.

What a covered credit protocol is

Cap issues cUSD, a stablecoin backed by a reserve of regulated stablecoins and tokenized money market funds. The yield side is unusual. Instead of a team allocating reserves at its own discretion, a credit engine lends to a vetted set of institutional operators, including trading firms and market makers. Every operator has to be covered: underwriters post escrowed capital in a financial guarantee market, and that capital absorbs the loss if an operator defaults.

Franklin Templeton and Susquehanna International Group are on the cap table, and RockawayX joined an $8 million round. The protocol launched on MegaETH. Reporting around the Upbit listing also points to a Euronext-listed trading firm borrowing stablecoins through the platform, the kind of named institutional use most DeFi credit protocols cannot show.

Figure 02How Cap's covered credit loop works, simplified from the protocol's own description.

Risks and open questions

The CAP token came from a batch auction that cleared at $0.011 per token, a $106 million fully diluted value, with $16.4 million committed across 1,002 bids, The Defiant reported on June 18. A batch auction lets buyers bid for supply and clears everyone at one price, unlike a venture round with negotiated terms. At $0.0732 the price is far above that clearing level. CoinGecko counts 1.56 billion of 10 billion tokens as circulating, so most of the supply is yet to reach the market.

A listing candle prices attention, not loan book quality. Cap's value rests on how its operator vetting and underwriter coverage perform through a real default, and we found no report of one. The institutional names on the cap table are a reason to watch the experiment, not proof that it works. Whether the token accrues value from the credit activity is a separate question, which our tokenomics guide explains.

What to watch next:

  • Whether Upbit's CAP/KRW volume stays the largest of any venue.
  • Any exchange notice dating the Coinbase and Kraken pairs.
  • The first public operator default, and how the underwriter cover responds.

Treat any third-party page promising CAP rewards or claims as suspect. The protocol's own site and the exchanges' official notices are the record, and nothing here is financial advice. The Derive page shows the same Korean listing pattern.

Not financial advice Listings often spike and then fade once the first wave of buyers is done. Nothing here is a suggestion to buy this token. Check dates on the exchange's own announcement page before trading: schedules slip. Our listing reaction data shows how new listings have typically traded.