Market cap: how the top 10 cryptos have changed
During the last five years has market value of the crypto world has seen major changes. From 2017 to present, market capitalization, as reported on websites such as CoinMarketCaphas risen and fallen by several billion dollars.
What has also changed are the 10 largest capitalized cryptocurrencies, which have not always held the same ranking over time.
What is market value?
Market value, by and large, is the total value of a company or asset.
In the case of cryptocurrencies, it is the sum of the value of all cryptocurrencies in circulation and is calculated by multiplying the number of coins in circulation by the price of one of each currency.
How the market value has changed in the last 5 years
Taking the date of writing this article as a reference, the market value of cryptocurrencies as a whole is today 1.08 trillion dollars.
A year ago, however, this figure was even higher. In 2021, most cryptocurrencies reached their all-time highs in terms of price, so it is only natural that the market cap was even higher. We’re talking about as much as $1.85 trillion as of August 2021.
Between 2017 and 2020 we see steady growth from year to year: if in 2018 the market value had almost doubled from the previous year from 125 billion dollars to 225 billion dollars, during 2019 it had risen to 305 billion dollars and then to 356 billion dollars in 2020.
A very interesting growth is the one that happened between 2017 and 2018, as after the ICO period the adoption starts to increase and the market value doubles.
However, what is particularly important is to highlight the period between 2020 and 2021, when the crypto market value actually more than tripled from 356 billion to 1.85 trillion. 2021 is actually, as we have mentioned, the year when many cryptocurrencies marked their all-time highs and the period also when NFTs come into their own, helping the industry get closer to the masses.
Here’s a tweet summarizing this ranking:
Total #Cryptocurrency Market value:
Today: $1.08 trillion
1 year ago: $1.85 trillion
2 years ago: $356 billion
3 years ago: $305 billion
4 years ago: $225 billion
5 years ago: $125 billion— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) 10 August 2022
Top 10 Cryptos from 2022 to 2017
As we mentioned, in addition to the total cryptocurrency market cap, the order of cryptocurrencies by market cap has also changed over the years, although Bitcoin has always led the way.
For example, while in 2017 we found the Bitcoin Cash fork in third place, today it is stablecoin Tether (USDT), while in fourth place in 2017 it was Ripple (XRP) instead of the current Binance Coin (BNB).
Other changes are also found in the next positions, with IOTA, NEM, Monero and Dash now falling out of the top 10 entirely to give way to the other stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), Solana, Terra and Dogecoin, at least according to until the February 2022 data.
If we then take the top 10 from today right now, as of August 2022, the list changes again and we find BUSD, the stablecoin of Binance and Polkadot instead of Terra and Dogecoin (the latter is now in 11th place).
Top 10 Crypto Before 2017
Even before 2017, the market cap of cryptocurrencies varied significantly, and so did the top 10 cryptocurrencies shifted constantly, partly due to the emergence of new projects.
If in 2014 it was Bitcoin (BTC), XRP, Litecoin (LTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE) that dominated the scene, after the launch of Monero (XMR), the latter entered the top ranks.
Then in 2015, the now-unknown StrongHands (SHND) project also peeked into the top 10, now ranking 2,365.
In March 2017, Verge (XVG) had also entered the ranking, and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in August 2018.
Dash (DASH), Nem (XEM), Stellar (XLM) and EOS (EOS) have also entered the rankings from time to time over the years, from 2014 to the present.
