Blockchain boom —

The world’s cryptocurrency is now worth more than $1 trillion

Bitcoin's anonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, could be worth $40 billion.

Timothy B. Lee - 1/8/2021, 1:30 AM

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The world's cryptocurrency is now worth more than $1 trillion, with bitcoin accounting for a large majority of the value. The price of the oldest virtual currency has risen to almost $40,000, pushing the value of all bitcoins in circulation up to more than $700 billion.

Ether, the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, is now worth more than $140 billion. Then there's a long list of less valuable cryptocurrencies, including Tether at $22 billion, Litecoin at $11 billion, and Bitcoin Cash at $8 billion.

Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to own around 1 million bitcoins. Most of these were mined in the first two years of Bitcoin's existence when there was little competition. If he still has copies of the private keys that control these coins, that would give him a net worth of nearly $40 billion—enough to make him among the 40 wealthiest people on the planet. Nakamoto has never publicly revealed his true identity and has not communicated publicly since 2014.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, brothers who became famous for their legal battle with Mark Zuckerberg over the origins of Facebook, are also major holders of bitcoins. At the peak of the last bitcoin boom in 2017, the Winklevoss brothers had $1.3 billion in bitcoin, according to The New York Times. That same bitcoin hoard would be worth $2.6 billion today.

Promoted Comments

• Mazzicc Ars Scholae Palatinae
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  Nardella wrote:

  I don't like using the word with in this context. Kind of like that asteroid talked about a while ago supposedly worth more than the total amount of all money. It's not a very useful measurement. If someone tried to buy all the cryptocurrency they'd end up paying more than a trillion. If someone with 10% of all cryptocurrency tried to sell all their holdings they'd end up with a lot less than 10% of a trillion.

  It's comparable to how securities and other security-like items are discussed. We talk about the market cap of AMZN but no one screams "but that's not what it's really worth because if Bezos sold all his stock it would be worth less!"
  
  Comparable terms are fair game for comparable items.
• Mazzicc Ars Scholae Palatinae
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  Deputy Cartman wrote:

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  Are you honestly looking at that graph and not understanding why people suspect the current activity is a bubble that is going to pop eventually?
  
  You want some evidence that it won't go up forever? How about... the fact that we're human beings and not perfectly rational? Or, oh I don't know, what happened on that graph from 2018 to 2019?
  
  Jesus...

  What about from 2019 to 2020? I thought 2018 was the tulip mania bubble anyway, but now 2020/21 is the tulip mania bubble?
  
  How many years would it need to spend at an arbitrary value above near-zero for you to say it's not a bubble?
  
  This isn't a gotcha-question, neither of us is going to "win" because of what you say in response to that question. It's simply trying to understand the separation between "bubble" and "growing asset". At some point it stays at a high value long enough that it's not a bubble to be at that value.