Bitcoin Forum

1b$ market capitalization milestone, should be worthy of press release title.

1B$ / 21 000 000 = 47.61$

right now:

Total BTC   10,862,000 BTC

Please read the question.

Does it matter? market cap is as useful as my sixth toe.

No.

Should market cap include speculative prices? No.

The market cap is calculated by current price. Price is subject to supply and demand. Note that supply does not include all to-be-mined coins.

Wrong. that would only be true if every miner took the full coinbase since the genesis block. They didn't, so some coins have never been mined.

Edit: As of block 224528, we have 10863209.57728951 coins mined

I think bitcoin is a special case, there is no speculation as to weather or not these bitcoin will be mined so they're somewhat part of the supply.

Yes, it should.

Factoring in a total supply (of almost 21 million coins) for the market cap is far more important in conservatively understanding the market. There's near certainty that those coins will be mined and likely circulated. 90% of them will be in the next decade. Estimate, let's say, 10% less than the total figure from lost/abandoned keys along the way. However, most sites and articles only show a market cap based on circulation. Arguably, it's that number that mostly sets the market perception. So, both figures matter.

No, it shouldn't, as that's not what the term "market capitalisation" means. Market capitalisation only ever includes shares that are actually held by shareholders, not treasury shares or unissued shares. It's an important distinction because every single satoshi that has ever been mined can be linked to the address of whoever currently holds it, just as every share of a company is owned by a particular shareholder, and you can point to that person and say "this person has this many bitcoins and they're worth this much". And you can add up all these people to get the total wealth that people are actually holding in bitcoins. That's what market capitalisation means.

Unmined bitcoins do not form part of the wealth held by any individual, and therefore are completely worthless. As far as the economy is concerned, it's as if they don't even exist. The fact that they will exist sometime in the future doesn't change the fact that they don't exist now, and therefore shouldn't be counted.

Bitcoin is a special case because 'market cap' is usually used to connote the economic size of the company and filters out the effect of dilution. With Bitcoin the dilution is known in advance by all parties and cannot be changed. This allows investors to discount the effect of future dilution when calculating NPV. Consequently, it is a fairly unique financial asset in that regard and there is a reasonable case on both sides.

Irrelevant.

How on earth could anywhere near 5 million coins have gone missing? That seems like a very high estimate........

Market cap = how much are all the bitcoins worth currently = current amount of BTC (= in circulation) * current price.

If you think people are factoring to-be-mined bitcoins, then that's already factored into the price, you don't need to account for it twice in the current amount as well.

The market cap represents (or should at least) the market of all bitcoins as it is right now. If you want to know what the market cap will be in five years then you can speculate the price and the amount. But the market as it is right now already takes into account what will happen in five years, so don't worry about it.

Bitcoin is not a corporation. It doesn't have separate share classes. Nor is it gold. Bitcoin is bitcoin. The 'true' market cap must account for its set dilution, considering how quickly most of the coins will come into being. If we use the corporation analogy, then no (logical) investor would factor the number of shares myopically at 11 million to understand the market's value of one's shares or of the company. If mining was slower and linear over the course of many centuries, there'd be better reasoning for tying the real-world market capitalization to a current and contained window of time that still estimates dilution, similar to precious metal pricing. But it isn't. Bitcoin is bitcoin.

If one is looking to get in and out quickly, sure, it's less important. However, for real long-term value storage, it's important to think of the cap conservatively (with dilution). Ultimately, it's not a huge issue either way. Bitcoin is in its infancy of potential. Bottoming or relative stability is nowhere in sight.