How Accurate Is The Bitcoin Market Capital?

[JollyGood]

I like the interesting way you deduced "it must be real then" 

If what we see around us are neither the real value of Bitcoin nor the real market capital of Bitcoin, I don't know how or if we could actually come up with a certain value or market cap of Bitcoin which we could consider as real.

What we are presented with right now are the market numbers which are now being accepted by everyone as real. So even if a portion of the volume that somehow drives up the value is fake or the supply of Bitcoin has now actually dwindled down due to lost coins, the resulting market price would still be the basis on which people buy and sell Bitcoin. It must be real then.

[exstasie]

Just wait until Wall Street is done with BTC. Central counterparties typically pledge a unit of collateral to ~1.8x parties beyond the actual owner. https://www.forbes.com/sites/caitlinlong/2018/08/13/the-r-and-c-words-enter-the-vocabulary-of-bitcoin-enthusiasts/

The downside is this has an inflationary effect, in regards to the BTC supply. If people think they own BTC (when they really don't) that effectively reduces demand. In fact, this is one of the ways a lid is kept on asset prices on Wall Street.

That's why it is important to promote events like proof of keys day (Jan 3 each year).

https://hackernoon.com/not-your-keys-not-your-bitcoin-jan3bitcoin-z6k3ktb

And inform people that holding bitcoins on third party wallets is not only risky but also harms bitcoin by inflating it

We might have some success with retail investors (people like you and me) but I believe institutional investors and traders have no interest in taking custody of their own coins. It's all going to be third party custodians like Fidelity Digital Assets.

[Febo]

With all sorts of fake over-inflated trading volumes being sent to coinmarketcap.com and other websites, how accurate do you think the real value of Bitcoin actually is and what the real market capital of Bitcoin actually is?

It is not about exchanges. Price of Bitcoin is well known. What is not known is how many coins are lost. All lost coins and all Satoshi coins should be excluded from real Bitcoin marketcap. We can speculate that 15% of coins are lost so Bitcoins real marketcap is 15% below what it shows right now. $170B instead of $200B