Cryptocurrency Market Value Reaches $2 Trillion

The cryptocurrency market raised its total value over $2 trillion for the first time this week. It’s not Bitcoin who made it happen. Instead, it’s Ether, the second most valuable cryptocoin that led the rally. In around two months, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization doubled, as more and more investors joined the movement. 

RELATED: Is Cryptocurrency the Future of Money?

Bitcoin Remains King Of Cryptocurrency Market  

Bitcoin remains the largest and most dominant cryptocurrency. It accounts for over 50% of crypto’s market cap. In fact, in 2021 alone, Bitcoin has more than reached double its January 1 value. The meteoric rise in value is now getting attention from mainstream investors from Wall Street. Previously, most institutional firms avoided crypto such as Bitcoin due to their volatility. 

Bitcoin hit a record high of $61,000 last month, which is more than double its January price. Currently, the digital currency is hovering at the $58,000 level and remains the powerhouse of the market. At present, Bitcoin’s market value is around $1 trillion, half or more than half of the total crypto market. It’s now too big to escape attention. Institutions like Morgan Stanley are slowly rolling out bitcoin investments, while mainstream companies like Tesla and Square announced they now accept bitcoin.

Ether Booming As Well 

Meanwhile, the five next biggest crypto coins, Ether, Binance Coin, Polkadot, Tether, and Cardano, hold a combined value of about $422 billion. However, this boost in crypto’s market value seems driven by the second most popular coin, Ether. It hit an all-time high of $2,151.25 last Tuesday, according to CoinDesk. This makes Ether up over 180% year-to-date. Like Bitcoin, the digital currency is beginning to receive furtive looks from companies. Chinese app maker Meitu bought $22.1 million in Ether last month. Meitu is one of the first major firms to step forward. 

The new record obliterates Ether’s previous all-time price high near $2,041 set last February 19.

CoinMarketCap lists ETH as the second largest asset by market cap currently. It holds a market capitalization near $239 billion. 

Ethereum Blockchain 

In addition, Ether is the digital coin behind the Ethereum blockchain technology. While Bitcoin also runs on the blockchain, it does so on a more basic version. In contrast, the Ethereum blockchain performs like a software platform that allows apps to run on it. Users can then use Ether to pay for the apps or their features. 

Smart contracts, a self-executing contract with the terms of the contract between buyer and seller directly written into lines of code, also figure prominently in the Ethereum blockchain. Also, Ether features Decentralized Finance (Defi), blockchain-based financial services. It allows parties to transact common services such as loans or payments that bypass banks and brokerages. This removes the middlemen in trades while allowing crypto as currency. 

Lesser Volatility

Interestingly, both Bitcoin and Ether showed less volatility in the previous weeks. This decrease in volatility helps calm down hesitant investors and encourages new ones to join the fray. IN particular, Bitcoin never went down to less than $50,000 even after its one proof that crypto seems here to stay.

Watch the Bloomberg Markets and Finance video reporting that Bitcoin broke its market cap record:

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