In the second half of 2017, the word “Bitcoin” became one of the most searched on the web. In the news, forums and other media it was the topic to follow. Most perhaps out of curiosity to know what was causing the price to go up in price more and more.

This wave of euphoria brought many enthusiasts and many detractors. There were those who sold their properties or used their savings to buy Bitcoins when it was already worth $10,000.

From the detractors came the arguments like it was a Ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme, a mania like tulip bulbs or an economic bubble.

We could say that they are all valid or not until proven otherwise. Of course neither enthusiasts nor detractors can have the absolute truth. It is simply the opinion of some against others.

But how big is the Bitcoin market really, to catch the attention of many sectors?

Well, I gave myself the task of looking for information about it to make a comparison and fortunately (in a joking tone) someone already did the research and with pleasure I want to share it. For this I will refer to two articles. Giving full credit to the howmuch.net team.

The idea of graphically depicting the global economy could not have been clearer, in this way you can measure the size of each market. It is worth mentioning that the values are approximate considering the price of Bitcoin at the time of writing, as well as the number of Bitcoins available.

Let’s start with Bill Gates, for years the richest man in the world so it’s an excellent benchmark. Bill Gates’ fortune is estimated at US$90 billion ($90,000,000,000), while the capital market for Bitcoin oscillates at US$112 B ($112,000,000,000), so to speak Bitcoin is “slightly higher”. However, it is estimated to be similar to the fortune of Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazón.

From the image we can highlight several points:

1- At the time of writing Jeff Bezos has more money than all the Bitcoins together and that without counting the value of Amazon.

2- The whole market of crypto currencies (BTC,ETH,XRP, etc) is equivalent to the fortunes of Jeff and Bill together.

3- Only the company Amazon is worth 8 times more than the entire capital market of Bitcoin.

4- If Bitcoin’s capital market were worth the same as Apple’s, each Bitcoin would cost approximately US$ 58,000.

5- If Bitcoin managed to capitalize the market value equal to the sum of Amazon and Apple (US$ 1.97 T = $ 1,970,000,000,000) the price of each Bitcoin could reach US$ 115,000.

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6- If we compare the gold market with that of Bitcoin, we can see that the market of the golden metal is almost 70 times larger than the market of the main cryptocurrency.

7- If Bitcoin were worth 10% of the gold market, each Bitcoin would have a price of approximately US$ 45,000.

And if we go to the big leagues the numbers are bigger and bigger.

According to the data, the gold market is 38 times larger than the current market for all cryptocurrencies. As a reference, the US debt is US$ 21 T, that is, almost 3 times the capital market for gold. If you “tokenized” each ounce of gold with bitcoins, the price of cryptocurrency would be $450,000.

The stock market is 10 times bigger than the gold market, which means that it is almost 700 times bigger than the Bitcoin market value. Only 1% of this market would make the price of Bitcoin reach about US$ 45,000.

The global supply of money corresponds to an astonishing US$ 95.7 T. This market of money corresponds to 850 times the capital market of Bitcoin. With only 10% of this market, by doing numbers we surpass half a million dollars per crypto currency unit.

Just to give clearer ideas, without so many “zeros”, the real estate market is almost:

28 times the gold market

217 times the value of Apple

1940 times the Bitcoin market

The global debt summing that of all countries is almost:

32 times the gold market

247 times the value of Apple

2205 times the Bitcoin market

And compared to the giant of the area, the scary derivatives market, you can see that it is almost:

68 times the gold market

532 times the value of Apple

4750 times the Bitcoin market

So putting into perspective what the Bitcoin market represents in the world of money, because we see that it is a modest participant, we could say that it would represent the second richest man in the world.

The data speaks for itself and when you read or hear that Bitcoin is a bubble, you may think so, but a very small one compared to global markets. If so, it would be a bubble that would seem to provoke a slight “sneeze” into the global economy compared to the deadly pneumonia that derivatives markets would generate or what would be like sneezing 4750 times to put it in the same terms.

To conclude, I mention a phrase very appropriate for these data, Max Keiser said: “Bitcoin is not the bubble, it is the needle that will prick the bubbles. And since I like to put into perspective where we stand, I will soon show you how impressive a “trillion dollar” looks.