Over the weekend, cryptocurrency reached a significant milestone when it reached a market capitalisation in the staggering $US2 trillion (or A2.7 trillion) for the first time.
CoinGecko tracks 8884 cryptocurrency coins and found that between them, they were now worth $2,108,466,906,329 ($A2.8 trillion) at time of writing.
This means that the total value of all 8884 cryptocurrency types is more than $2 trillion.
This is an incredible achievement, considering bitcoin launched in 2009 as the first decentralised cryptocurrency. It was launched with just one coin.
This is not the first time that digital currency has surpassed $2 trillion. It reached the 12-digit mark in April, just before it plunged dramatically.
Bitcoin is responsible for a large portion of cryptocurrency’s market capital. It surged to its highest level since May, when it reached its all-time high.
Bitcoin was worth $48,152 (A65,439), but it fell to $47,526 (A64,639) Monday.
Its market capitalization is $US894 trillion ($A1.2 Trillion). This makes it less than half of all cryptocurrency’s total value.
Major players in digital coin world
There are over 8000 different types of cryptocurrency available on the market. Other than bitcoin, there are many other cryptocurrency that have contributed significantly to the $US2 Trillion market capitalisation.
Ethereum is the second-most valuable crypto token. It’s worth $US3290 (A4484) per coin and has a market capitalisation $US387 billion (A526 billion) as of this writing.
Ethereum was first traded in 2015, with one coin that had a value of $A3.76.
Cardano is the third most valuable cryptocurrency.
Cardano rose by 47% in the past week.
According to CoinGecko, during the same time period, binance coin rose 14 percent, XRP rose 61%, and dogecoin rose 18%.
This is the second consecutive time that crypto has surpassed the $US2 trillion mark.
It seems to have held so far, and was well into the trillions mid-Monday.
The crypto market cap reached $US2.02 Trillion on April 6, 2018.
Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $US50,000 (A68,000) on May 16.
However, prices began to fall after that.
