The market capitalization of bitcoin has hit a new all-time high above $330 billion as the flagship cryptocurrency’s price closes in on its all-time high near $20,000.Bitcoin’s market cap,
CryptoCompare data shows, is now at $337.5 billion as the cryptocurrency is currently trading above $18,000. Its previous all-time high seen in December 2017 was hit when BTC’s price came close to the $20,000.
While the cryptocurrency’s price isn’t at an all-time high, there are now more bitcoins in circulation than in December 2017, which make up the difference. Blockchain.com data shows that in December 2017 there were about 16.7 million BTC in circulation, while now there are 18.546 million BTC.
Bitcoin’s halving event earlier this year saw block rewards on the cryptocurrency’s blockchain drop from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC per block, effectively cutting in half the supply of new coins entering the market. The Bitcoin protocol has a pre-defined limit of 21 million Bitcoin, with mining rewards per block decreasing every 210,000, which are mined roughly at four-year intervals.
Data from CoinMetrics shows that Bitcoin’s market capitalization isn’t the only metric for the cryptocurrency that recently hit a new all-time high. Bitcoin balances with a balance of $10 or more is well above its late 2017 level which implies more people now own bitcoin than in 2017. It’s worth noting, however, one person can have multiple addresses on the blockchain.
CoinMetrics’ data also shows that BTC’s realized capitalization, an alternative to its market capitalization “designed to take into account the reality of when Bitcoins changed hands,” is also well-above its all-time high.
Bitcoin’s realized capitalization takes into account every unit of BTC “according to when they last moved on-chain,” instead of every outstanding BTC unit. Per CoinMetrics, it “ignores the market value of Bitcoins that haven’t moved since 2009 (when Bitcoin did not have a market value).“
Featured image via Pixabay.
