The cryptocurrency market continues to fly into the stratosphere, contrary to the predictions of skeptics.
On Friday, the bitcoin rate for the first time in history exceeded $ 54,000, and its capitalization broke through the trillion dollar mark. Bitcoin is adding 15% per day, from the beginning of February – 68%, from the beginning of the year – 86%, and over the past 7 years – 5400%.
The total capitalization of all cryptocurrencies, according to Coimarketcap, reached $ 1.654 trillion. This is more than Russia’s GDP, which the IMF estimates at $ 1.4 trillion at the end of 2020.
The capitalization of one bitcoin – $ 1.013 trillion – equaled the GDP of Mexico and corresponds to the level of the 15th largest economy in the world.
Parabolic growth brought bitcoin to the 8th place in the top expensive assets in the world. It costs more than the Chinese telecom congolmerate Tencent ($ 928 billion), Tesla ($ 757 billion) and Facebook ($ 752 billion).
Above Bitcoin are only Apple, Saudi Aramco, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, as well as gold and silver.
The topic of cryptocurrencies began to be “actively pumped” by large institutional investors, says Yegor Susin, head of the strategy development center at Gazprombank. Giants were also noted, including BlackRock, the largest hedge fund in terms of assets, which manages $ 7.4 trillion.
On February 8, Tesla announced the purchase of bitcoins for $ 1.5 billion. “When a fiat currency has negative real returns, only a fool will not look for anything else. Bitcoin is almost as nonsense as paper money. But the key word is “almost,” Elon Musk said on Friday.
Alternative currencies such as bitcoin and gold have become the main beneficiaries of the pandemic, JP Morgan wrote in December. The central banks’ printing presses launched at unprecedented capacity, having poured more than $ 8 trillion into the markets, created a tsunami of liquidity that pushed up the quotes of gold and bitcoin.
