Bitcoin achieved its first big milestone in terms of market capitalization exactly nine years ago
Bitcoin’s market capitalization reached $1 billion for the first time on March 28, 2013.
The world’s first cryptocurrency was trading at just $92 back then. The price rally was linked to the Cyprus banking crisis.
Notably, the event was covered by none other than Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Before helping launch the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, he wrote articles for Bitcoin Magazine, one of the premier cryptocurrency-related publications.
Mt. Gox, which went out of business due to a crippling hacking incident that took place in February 2014, was still the dominant cryptocurrency trading platform back in the day.
At the time, Bitcoin had yet to become a mainstream asset despite growing adoption. During its early years, the reputation of the cryptocurrency was tainted by drug trafficking and other nefarious activities.
As reported by U.Today, Bitcoin surpassed the $1 trillion mark for the first time last February. This came shortly after Tesla, the world’s largest e-car maker, announced its $1.5 billion investment in the flagship cryptocurrency. In spite of various predictions about how the purchase would kickstart growing corporate adoption, other S&P 500 companies did not follow suit.
Bitcoin’s market capitalization currently sits at $902 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap. The price of the leading cryptocurrency has risen around 15.58% over the past week, currently trading at $47,649 on major spot exchanges.
If Bitcoin were a company, it would be the seventh-biggest company in the world (behind only Tesla, Amazon, Alphabet, Saudi Aramco, Microsoft and Apple).
Although it has reached some impressive milestones, Bitcoin still has a lot of catching up to do to match the market capitalization of gold, which currently stands at around $12.2 trillion. For comparison, the total value of the S&P 500 index is $40.15 trillion.
