With the cryptocurrency market being on a full-scale bullish track, the total market cap has managed to reach a $909 billion milestone before dropping back to the current $865 billion figure. The stunning run coincided with BTC (bitcoin) blasting over $34,000. This has also propelled the altcoin market to get into the bullish weekend bender. Recent statistics released by CoinMarketCap reveals the market cap had risen to $840 billion during the 2017-2018 parabolic surges.
The Crypto market is slightly over 10% from hitting a $1 trillion market cap. The rise led to a cheeky comment by Shapeshift CEO, Erik Voorhees, who revealed that the latest market cap total figure was approximately 1/7th of the Fed’s balance sheet.
Ethereum Lagging Behind the Uptrend of Bitcoin
BTC (bitcoin) is not just the largest cryptocurrency out there by adoption and capitalization of the market. However, the most important one is the hash rate. Although the crypto asset is solely behind the rise, altcoins have caught up in the bullish affair.
ETH (ethereum) is one of the most coins that is featured highly and aided the capitalization of the cumulative market. With the largest altcoin globally crossing over the $1,150 market. The last time that ETH (ethereum) managed to get to four figures on the dollar was three years back in 2018.
BTC (bitcoin) has managed to gain by 25% in January compared to its 300% gain back in 2020. In the past 12 months, ETH (ethereum) has managed to soar reaching 860% after trading above $1,200.
The Impact
The strong momentum of BTC (bitcoin) can bring in the much-hyped alt season soon. In most cases, the altcoins prepare for a relatively colossal surge whenever BTC (bitcoin) consolidates after a massive rally. This is one thing that was observed since the Christmas holiday and has been extended to 2021. It happens since it is when BTC (bitcoin) will become stable. The market investors, together with participants, usually take more risks on plays in the cryptocurrency market.
In most cases, whenever BTC (bitcoin) consolidates, the altcoin market will always be witnessing a massive rise in volume. Michaël van de Poppe, a prevalent trader at Amsterdam Stock Exchange, noted that the temporary BTC (bitcoin) probability of creating a local top was increasing.
“The $1 trillion places cryptocurrency as an investable asset class. It no longer sits on the Traditional Finance fringes as a retail investor’s toy,” revealed Messari decentralized finance analyst Jack Purdy.
Most of the large investments have come from companies like MicroStrategy which managed to receive over 70,000 BTC plans to purchase more. Also, Ruffer Investment, an asset manager based in London that dumped $740 million into BTC (bitcoin) towards the close of 2020.
Wang revealed to CoinDesk that cryptos were an institutional-grade venture bet. The market is entirely liquid enough to help deploy large capital sums, but it was still early enough for a 10x return.
For most investors, the returns do come from altcoins with the BTC (bitcoin) continuing to rise past the $40,000 mark. The altcoin indexes have managed to gain momentum.
According to the FTX markets, the 10 top altcoins index has rallied over 30% in 2021. Shitcoin index, which represents the micro-cap altcoins, has also managed to gain over 20% in January.
“1 trillion dollar market cap is a huge milestone for crypto, especially when you consider it was below $200 billion a few months ago,” revealed Nate Maddrey, the Coin Metrics research analyst. However, the total market cap of crypto is only a fraction of the equities, gold, and other assets.
From the shitcoin indexes to the bellwether assets such as BTC (bitcoin), the retail speculators and institutional buyers can get something to help put their interest in the trillion-dollar market recently minted.
“Crypto is in a unique position to become the essential class asset in the 21st century and does have lots of room to grow,” revealed Maddrey.
