The total Bitcoin market cap has surpassed the $70 billion mark, putting the digital currency on par with several S&P500 companies including PayPal and Netflix.
Bitcoin Performance
In the last couple of months, the Bitcoin price has steadily risen to new levels. On August 17, 2017, the Bitcoin price reached its all-time high of $4,483! The new Bitcoin all-time high was even predicted back in July 2017 by a Goldman Sachs analyst. Many analysts believe that the Bitcoin price rise was attributed to the recent blockchain fork, which created Bitcoin Cash.
The current popularity of initial coin offerings has also been attributed to the rise of the cryptocurrency market cap, the most notable example of which is the recent Dmarket ICO, which managed to raise $7 million within 24 hours.
According to CNBC, financial services firm Goldman Sachs is forecasting a further Bitcoin price raise of $344, which could take the bitcoin price to $4,827.
Taking on PayPal in the S&P 500
After reaching a new all-time high, the Bitcoin market cap reached almost $71 billion, which puts the popular cryptocurrency on par with top S&P 500 companies like video streaming service, Netflix and famous online payment system, Paypal. According to an article by prominent website MarketInsider, Standpoint Research’s Ronnie Moas has predicted that the Bitcoin price might hit as high as $7,500 in 2018. The most exciting achievement that Bitcoin reached was the fact its market cap surpassed that of Paypal.
CEO of BlockTower Capital, Ari Paul, offered his thoughts on Bitcoin’s recent achievement on Yahoo Finance:
PayPal was initially created with a similar vision to Bitcoin — as permissionless money. PayPal wasn’t able to fulfill that vision, but Bitcoin is well on the way. Bitcoin can be used to transfer $100 million anywhere in the world in 10 minutes and for less than $2. Bitcoin rising in value above PayPal reflects its growing role as the best way to move money globally.
Many believe that PayPal is still hindering cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and preventing them from becoming mainstream in the online payment world, but the fact that Bitcoin alone could surpass the market capitalization of PayPal may indicate that cryptocurrencies could become the future of online payments.
What are your thoughts on the current market cap of Bitcoin? Do you think it could become bigger in the future? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Pixabay, PayPal, CoinMarketCap