This week the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization surpassed US$300Bn for the first time in history. Bitcoin’s significant rise in value, alongside the wide variety of other cryptocurrencies having similar price spikes continue to reveal that digital assets are trending across the world in a big way.
Also Read: North Korean Citizens Study Cryptocurrencies at Pyongyang University
1323 Cryptos Command a Whopping $300Bn Market Cap
Bitcoin came to the world back in January of 2009, and following its birth, other cryptocurrencies were born during the early days like litecoin, mastercoin, feathercoin, and peercoin. Now there are 1323 different cryptocurrencies that have created a significantly large market capitalization of over $300Bn. According to Coinmarketcap.com, over the past two weeks, digital asset trade volumes have been through the roof trading nearly $15-26Bn in daily trades. The financial publication Business Insider notes that metric is “higher than the 5-day average trading volume for some U.S. equity exchanges.”
The Top 15 Digital Assets Have Market Caps Over a Billion and the Top Ten Have Over $2 Billion
A few months ago only the top six largest cryptocurrency market caps had a billion or more; which was a record at the time. Now the top 15 digital assets have market caps of over a billion or more. The top ten capture over $2Bn each, which includes bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash, ripple, bitcoin gold, dash, litecoin, IOTA, monero, and NEO. Bitcoin’s market is dominating at the moment by over 53 percent, but ethereum, bitcoin cash, and ripple also have large percentages of the $300Bn overall market cap.
Crypto is Bigger Than the Global Art Market but Tiny Compared to Gold and Real Estate Markets
Cryptocurrencies are a valuable investment, and people have been very attracted to the gains taking place this year. For instance, demand has driven bitcoin’s market cap to be more prominent than the $45Bn art market these days. However, it still has a long way to go as larger global investment markets overshadow digital currencies quite a bit. For instance investments in residential real estate capture around $162 trillion according to Bloomberg. The global gold market is about 6 trillion, which is gigantic compared to the 0.3 trillion in cryptocurrency market capitalizations. But the well-known Fundstrat investment manager, Tom Lee, explains that bitcoin itself only needs to capture 5 percent of the gold market to be more than double what it is today.
“Bitcoin is our digital gold — So we think that the gold market, which is 9 trillion, and for a generation of investors gold was their store of value,” explains Tom Lee.
I think this next generation of young people view bitcoin as their store of value. And if it captures 5% of the gold market, it’s worth at least $25,000 per unit.
All of this is happening while bitcoin is still kind of difficult for average joes to purchase. However, Coinbase is now attracting institutional investors, Ledger X has been trading futures, the world’s largest exchange CME is planning its futures products, alongside JP Morgan and Cboe preparing to bring crypto-investment vehicles to the table as well.
Japan and South Korea Dominate
In addition to businesses offering ‘exposure’ to digital assets, two unique countries are embracing cryptocurrencies. Specifically, Japan and South Korea have become dominant trading arenas for various digital currencies, and the yen and the won have commanded the world’s crypto-trade volumes month after month this year. Gone are the days when China ruled the roost, as both Korean and Japanese citizens seem to be eating up cryptocurrencies like candy. The yen has been the number one currency by volume worldwide as far as bitcoin, and South Korea has taken the third BTC volume position behind the U.S. South Korea also commands the most bitcoin cash (BCH) volume, as the won is over 50 percent of the global market on any given day.
$100Bn In Just 24 Days
Cryptocurrency fever doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. This year has been one of the biggest years for digital assets so far. During the last few months of 2017, the demand has picked up exponentially as over $100Bn was added to the economy in just 24 days. It’s safe to say that $300bn or a 0.3 trillion dollar valuation is a pretty good start for the very young cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Where do you see the value of cryptocurrency markets going from here? Let us know in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Coinmarketcap.com, and Pixabay.
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