Infographic: Bitcoin Leads The Crypto Market

According to website CoinMarketCap, all bitcoins in the world were worth around 202 billion U.S. dollars as of October 9, 2020 – more than five times as much as those of the next biggest cryptocurrency, Ethereum. But Bitcoin used to be worth even more: At the end of 2017, the cryptocurrency briefly reached a market capitalization of over 300 billion U.S. dollars. That year, Bitcoin started to appeal to mainstream investors and while the ensuing frenzy for the digital currency catapulted its value to new heights, it also led to an inevitable crash in 2018 and a market value that sunk as low as 56 billion momentarily.

Smaller players in the crypto market are Tether (16 billion U.S. dollars) and XRP (10 billion U.S. dollars). The former currency experienced a significant increase in the value of around 13 billion U.S. dollars over the last 12 months, securing third place. XRP, on the other hand, lost around 8.5 billion in market value and slid into fourth place.