Cryptocurrency market now worth almost as much as Apple after market cap hits record $2 TRILLION

6 Apr, 2021 08:33

The combined market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has surpassed $2 trillion for the first time in history, boosted by explosive growth in bitcoin and other coins.

The value of all cryptocurrencies surpassed the $2-trillion mark on Monday evening and continued to rise after that, data from tracking website CoinGecko shows. On Tuesday morning the market capitalization of the crypto market hit an all-time peak of $2.039 trillion, before sliding to the current level of around $2.020 trillion. 

This means that all the cryptocurrencies available in the market are now nearly as valuable as Apple, the second-largest company in the world, or the combined value of Google and Tesla.

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It took the crypto market less than three months to gain more than one trillion dollars. The total market value of all cryptocurrencies hit $1 trillion for the first time in January. 

The new record was driven by massive gains of major digital currencies, such as bitcoin. The market capitalization of bitcoin has not fallen below $1 trillion since the end of March and currently stands at around $1.1 trillion. The price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency more than doubled this year and recently touched a record high of $61,556.59 on CoinDesk. It is currently trading at around $58,800.

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Meanwhile, the second-largest virtual currency, ethereum, hit an all-time peak of $2,151.25 on Tuesday morning. According to CoinDesk data, it was still up 5% and trading near the record price as of 07:30am GMT.

In addition to the increased inflow of retail investors, more institutional players have turned to the crypto market over the past several months, including financial heavyweights like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, as well as major payments providers. Last week, online payment giant PayPal revealed a feature introducing cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, while Visa enabled payments in stablecoin USD Coin (USDC).

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