What I do not understand is how some of the market cap of these coins keep increasing even though their prices remain less than less than a dollar
It's due to new coins coming into
circulation.
Because Marketcap is calculated by
circulating coins x price per coin = marketcap.
And when more coins are coming into circulation, which is a big problem for many shitcoins, price goes down per coin.
It's called "dilution", supplies of each coin are getting diluted and prices per coin are getting devalued when many new coins are coming into circulation.
A little bit like inflation, when new USD is printed but inflation is much lower for USD compared to most shitcoins.
Shitcoins often don't have a
max supply like Bitcoin has (21,000,000 coins) and are at high risk of suffering from massive inflation.
I've exposed some common tricks of shitcoins (Polkadot) here:
Bitcoin vs. Altcoins projected MarketcapPolkadot is a good example how each coin is getting devalued diluted due to many new coins coming into circulation.