According to publicly-available market data, bitcoin’s market capitalization has hit a new all-time high, eclipsing its highest mark ever of $328.89879 billion, set on December 16, 2017, per Coin Metrics.
Market capitalization is determined by an asset’s individual price, multiplied by its total supply. At the time of this writing, according to cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp, the bitcoin price reached $17,756 and, according to Bitcoin data aggregator Clark Moody, the supply has reached 18,546,019.15 BTC. With that total listed supply at that listed price, bitcoin has a market capitalization of $329.303116 billion.
Though the price of a single bitcoin measured in USD tends to garner the most mainstream media attention, the network’s market capitalization may be an even more critical measure of its value. It indicates the relative value of Bitcoin as a system, as opposed to the value of a single bitcoin.
Market capitalization is also a helpful measure for comparing Bitcoin to other financial assets, companies or value systems. As our infographic from August 2019 shows, even though Bitcoin’s market cap has grown considerably and represents by far the highest of any cryptocurrency, it still pales in comparison to many industries and legacy financial assets. When comparing market caps in this way, it’s clear that we have barely scratched the surface of Bitcoin’s financial potential
