In a single year, the cryptocurrency market has risen from a relatively tiny $18 billion market cap to three quarters of a trillion dollars!

Investors have returned from their holidays and are re-entering the cryptocurrency market with more fresh money to inject into the system. Today, the market cap stands at around $750 billion.

Just a week ago, the market sagged a little, as investors had taken their profits and cashed them out, causing the market cap to drop significantly - perhaps for holidays or for a little extra spending money. Now, the money is returning to the market in droves.

Ripple has been steadily increasing in value for the past month and, depending on one's interpretation of market cap, could arguably be considered the number one coin right now. In terms of currently circulating coins, it stands at half the market cap of Bitcoin - a significant achievement. It has been joined by a number of newer contenders including Cardano, Stellar Lumens, and IOTA.

In terms of market cap, these valuations for cryptocurrencies would have been unthinkable even a couple months ago. Many readers would have laughably dismissed a $32 billion valuation for Cardano, for example. Anyone betting on Ripple having a market cap of $130 billion just a month ago would have seen many takers on the other side of the bet.

The mathematics of it all seems to go out the window at times like this. This is because there is such enormous room for these markets to grow that they can not be calculated in a rational manner. It is not comparable to stocks, or rises in commodity prices, or inflation. It is an unprecedented growth in a market that has never before existed and can not, therefore, be compared to other markets.

An expert could project growth of the cryptocurrency market to be comparable to that of gold, for example, placing the entire market cap at around $6-7 trillion. While this would make for a fair comparison for the monetary elements of cryptocurrency, the reality is, these are not like other currencies. They provide functionality and utility as well, not just storage and transmission of value. So, $6-7 trillion may actually be a bit low when considering it just does not compare directly to gold. It's more than "Gold 2.0".

The sky truly is the limit. There is no telling where this market will be another year from now.

sources:

https://coinmarketcap.com/

https://www.dreambigfilm.com/press/