As AI search transforms how people discover information, a new metric emerges: AI citations. While traditional SEO focused on organic traffic and rankings, AI SEO looks at how often AI assistants like ChatGPT cite a brand when answering user queries.
I analyzed the top crypto companies to discover which ones dominate AI citations—and what we can learn from them.
Methodology
To identify the crypto companies winning at AI SEO, I examined three categories:
Highest-valued crypto companies and protocols based on DeFiLlama,
Leading crypto exchanges by volume,
Top crypto publishers by traffic.
For each website, I pulled Ahrefs's domain ranking, organic traffic, and ChatGPT citation data, which tracks how frequently ChatGPT mentions these brands in its responses to users.
Ahref’s AI citations measure how often a website is cited in the database of AI queries. Ahref started with 1 million queries and is expanding its database to 10+ million. While it’s not a perfect measure of AI search traffic, it’s an easy way to quickly compare different the AI visibility of different brands.
And here’s what I found.
The Top 10 Companies by ChatGPT Citations
Company | Domain Rating | Organic Traffic | ChatGPT Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
Coinbase | 91 | 10,200,000 | 5,100 |
Coinmarketcap | 90 | 7,400,000 | 1,200 |
Kraken | 85 | 4,800,000 | 1,200 |
Binance | 91 | 10,500,000 | 1,100 |
KuCoin | 82 | 611,000 | 1,100 |
Ledger | 85 | 653,000 | 1,000 |
Coingecko | 89 | 1,500,000 | 895 |
Bitget | 86 | 325,000 | 695 |
Coindesk | 89 | 1,700,000 | 643 |
Bitpanda | 77 | 493,000 | 468 |
Coinbase dominates with over 5,100 citations: more than 4x its closest competitor. But the real story emerges when we look at the patterns across all ten companies.
What These Companies Have in Common
Perhaps most telling: six out of ten are crypto exchanges. This suggests that businesses directly serving users have an advantage in earning AI citations.
Beyond that, top performers in AI citations in crypto have 3 things in common:
exceptional domain authority,
massive content libraries,
strong brand recognition.
Every company on this list has a Domain Rating above 75, with most exceeding 85. They've built authoritative web properties over the years.
Strong Domains Aren't Enough
Domain authority matters, but it's far from the complete picture.
OpenSea, with a Domain Rating of 88, has the strongest domain in crypto. Yet it earns just 47 ChatGPT citations. Despite being the dominant NFT marketplace and now a token trading platform with millions of monthly visitors, OpenSea's relatively thin content strategy limits its AI visibility.
This pattern repeats across some of crypto's most prominent projects. The domain strength that drives traditional SEO success doesn't automatically translate to AI citations.
Brand Recognition Alone Won't Cut It
If strong brands guaranteed AI citations, Ethereum.org and Solana.com would rank among the leaders.
Instead, they earn just 14 and 12 citations, respectively, despite officially representing the most recognized names in crypto.
These blockchains have massive communities, billions in market cap, and universal name recognition. Yet ChatGPT rarely cites its official websites.
Why?
Their sites primarily contain technical documentation and developer resources, not the comprehensive educational content that language models reference when answering user questions.
Content Is the Differentiator
The companies dominating AI citations all have this in common: extensive content covering a wide range of crypto topics.
Exchanges like Coinbase and Binance have published thousands of educational articles, guides, and explainers over the years. They've answered every conceivable question a crypto newcomer might ask.
CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko also show this. As data aggregators, they've expanded beyond price listings to publish extensive educational content, glossaries, and market analysis. Their citation counts reflect this strategic content expansion.
The Playbook for Everyone Else
Competing with Coinbase and Binance for broad crypto queries is nearly impossible.
They have years-long head starts, unlimited resources, and established authority. Trying to outrank them for "what are private keys" or "how to buy Bitcoin" is a losing battle.
The winning strategy for smaller crypto companies is specialization.
Instead of competing on breadth, compete on depth. Define your niche within crypto and become the definitive source for it.
Then, within this niche, you need to work to get:
Strong domain — to be cited by AI, you need to be found so the traditional SEO is still the foundation.
Strong brand — you need to be known online, popularity is a proxy for trust
Best content — this is where you compete by creating the most clear, authoritative, structured, and relevant content that helps to answer specific queries.
In future issues, I’ll research specific crypto verticals, digging into who dominates AI SEO and what they do.
Want to learn exactly how to make this work for your project? Subscribe to my free newsletter at aiseoforcrypto.com and get practical strategies for AI SEO that actually work in crypto.