I wonder if CMC even hosts a full node. Not that I'm a big fan of Blockchain.info, but even their numbers looks more reliable then CMC's. Damn shame!
Do they have to host a full node? As far as I understand CMC just aggregates data from exchanges.
no they don't run a full node and they don't have to run a full node. Coinmarketcap.com is not an exchange to need to run one and it is not an exchange to be able to even affect the market the way all these dramatic articles these days are suggesting they did!
you are correct, they just gather data from exchanges and put them on their website and that data is updated every 5 minutes. and just because there may be some wrong data there doesn't mean they are "scamming"!