The total market capitalization of the flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin has surpassed that of payments giant Mastercard, earning BTC the 16th place in a list of the largest companies in the world by market capitalization.
According to monitoring resource Asset Dash, as first reported by Decrypt, the market capitalization of Mastercard is of $332.8 billion, while the market capitalization of bitcoin is of $337.7 billion. While the cryptocurrency’s price – and market cap – have been steadily going up over the last 30 days, MasterCard’s stock is at $333.8, down from an all-time high of $366 seen in August of this year.
It’s worth noting that bitcoin’s market capitalization represents the combined value of all circulating BTC, while the market cap of companies like MasterCard represents the combined value of its shares. As CryptoGlobe reported, bitcoin’s market cap hit a new all-time high this month as the price of BTC moved up from around $10,500 in October to over $18,000 at press time.
Over the last 30 days, BTC’s price is up over 50%.
It’s believed that bitcoin’s price went up thanks to increasing corporate adoption, as at least 15 publicly traded firms invested in BTC over the last few months. MicroStrategy, for example, invested $425 million into the cryptocurrency, while Square bought $50 million worth earlier this year.
Some of the other publicly traded firms with bitcoin exposure include BTC mining firms like Hut 8 Mining, Argo Blockchain, and Riot Blockchain. On top of that, PayPal launched a new service that lets users buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies on its platform. The service is for now only available to users in the U.S. and supports BTC, BCH, LTC, and ETH.
Currently, the biggest company by market cap is Apple, at $2 trillion. Bitcoin is, however, often compared to gold as investors buy BTC as a store of value. Gold’s market cap is said to be at around $8 trillion.
Featured image via Pixabay.
