The market cap of cryptocurrencies, the world’s fastest growing asset class, has surpassed $677 billion. And bitcoin itself has surged past the payment processing company Paypal and the fast food company McDonald’s. Still, it looks tiny compared to other global markets.
Also Read: Chinese Bitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Establishes Branch in Zug, Switzerland
The site The Money Project has put together a series of interesting pictures describing the market cap of the world’s money and markets. Each block square is worth $100 billion.
Apple, a world leading tech giant, has a market cap of over $800 billion. But Bitcoin prognosticator Ronnie Moas, founder and director of Standpoint Research, predicted that “Bitcoin needs to be taken seriously as within five years it could reach $800 billion.”
The world top 50 richest people are worth a whopping $1.9 trillion. Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto with his coins unmoved from day one is also in the billionaire league. And in recent weeks, ripple’s record highs have propelled its co-founder creator Chris Larsen to one of the world’s richest people. He owns 5.19 billion of its XRP cryptocurrency, which gives his holdings a rough value of $12.82 billion, according to Forbes.
The total value of the world’s coins and banknotes is roughly $7.6 trillion.
The World Gold Council estimated that the world’s total above ground gold reserves are 187,200 tonnes. Bitcoin has a maximum of 21 million coins.
Both gold and bitcoin are generated with the process of mining, but with different means. Hundreds of tons of gold are mined every year through means that include placer mining, hard rock mining, byproduct mining, gold ore processing. New bitcoins are generated by a competitive and decentralized process also called mining. And miners need to process transactions and secure the network using specialized hardware.
We really have come a long way in the past decade. Do you think Bitcoin will surge over Gold? When? Leave your comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Money.visualcapitalist.com
Do you like to research and read about Bitcoin technology? Check out Bitcoin.com’s Wiki page for an in-depth look at Bitcoin’s innovative technology and interesting history.
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