Crypto's economic value is surprisingly low :'(

[fiulpro]

"Bitcoin accounted for just 0.4% of the world's money.
Bitcoin was worth only about 1.6% as much as the world's gold supply.
All cryptocurrencies combined accounted for less than 0.7% of the world's money . "
(Taken from investopedia.com )

"The current number of unique active users of cryptocurrency wallets is estimated to be between 2.9 million and 5.8 million"
(Taken from Cryptocurrency benchmark study )

Taking into account the number of users of cryptocurrencies , it is quite shocking to see the world economy they are accounting for . It is both shocking plus unreasonable to see the abilities of cryptocurrencies being limited by both government and people.

Small percentages might be insignificant but we need to understand that it does play an important role in establishing something. Cryptocurrencies have huge potential . 1 BTC might be worth more than most of the stocks out there but the overall value in the papers is surprisingly low.

"Stock market capitalization as percent of GDP, 2018 - Country rankings: The average for 2018 based on 63 countries was 70.95 percent."
(Taken from the Global economy)

What we can do to push this percentage up ?
* I do think it is really important to educate people about the cryptocurrencies like Bitcoins, most of them still call it a scam ! , We need to answer these questions as a professional to them .
Considering the immense potential it has , even if one person introduce Bitcoins to 10 people , it's economic value will inturn increase , making it more beneficial for the whole community.

Why is it important to do that ?
Economic value of something does reflect largely on the thing itself , we have been asking government time and again to consider cryptocurrencies seriously , if we efficiently introduce it to normal people , even take time out to make sure they have a wallet installed in their mobile phones , it would someday interest them into learning more about it , it would make sure that cryptocurrencies are considered *normal* , *real* , *beneficial* .

Also to all the people out there who are accepting BTC and other cryptocurrencies for their services , you are already doing a valuable job for the community , feel free to share your experiences .

Please feel free to add your points and counter points , constructive criticism is highly valued since am also learning and this platform is for discussing your ideas and thoughts not for fighting  

[Argoo]

This is not surprising, given that cryptocurrency is still a little over ten years old. This type of financial asset is completely new and completely different from other traditional assets. To use cryptocurrency, you need to have certain knowledge, skills, technical devices, access to the Internet, and so on. The language barrier is also of great importance. For ordinary people who earn their living in a completely different activity, often there is not even enough time to be interested in cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency has already achieved a lot in this short time. Therefore, I am absolutely not surprised by such figures. Cryptocurrency requires much more time for development.

[mikeauerbach]

There are also some drawbacks about cryptocurrencies that don't allow to use them as a medium of exchange now. Crypto needs more time to develop enough, and people will be interested in it. Btw it isn't correct to compare crypto with gold. Gold has been used as an assets for several millenniums, of cause, its supply is much bigger. 

[Twentyonepaylots]

with a course of a decade the cryptocurrency is still a little, it may look like we have achieved a lot but we really did not however there is no thing in the world that come up big, we have this so called process to undergo before evolving. What can we do to make the percentage up? I say continue the support to crypto, any support will make a change on the percentage not just with bitcoin. Now we know the main reason why fiat will never be replaced by bitcoin or any other crypto.

[Upgrade00]

"Stock market capitalization as percent of GDP, 2018 - Country rankings: The average for 2018 based on 63 countries was 70.95 percent."
(Taken from the Global economy)

To put this in perspective, the oldest stock market goes as far back as the 16th century and the wall street market was established around 1792 IIRC. Bitcoins' Genesis block was mined in 2009.

"The current number of unique active users of cryptocurrency wallets is estimated to be between 2.9 million and 5.8 million"
(Taken from Cryptocurrency benchmark study )

Taking into account the number of users of cryptocurrencies , it is quite shocking to see the world economy they are accounting for . It is both shocking plus unreasonable to see the abilities of cryptocurrencies being limited by both government and people.

Unique wallet addresses =/= unique users of Bitcoin. And it's surely not a good metric to go by to judge mass adoption of cryptocurrency. Take into account that there are thousands of cryptocurrencies of which a lot are worthless included in that figure.

[sheenshane]

Tend to agree to the idea of community awareness for Bitcoin or the entire cryptocurrency. It really takes a lot of time and effort but if we wish for global acceptance of Bitcoin then first we better let everyone know what these crypto digital currencies are there it's potential and advantages in using a decentralized currency.

Since bitcoin is not owned by anyone or a product of a specific business then no one will spend thousands of dollars for television advertisement, and that being said global awareness will be difficult in fact internet service will also be an obstacle for cryptocurrency for there are communities especially the rural ones has no internet service yet and some of them still consider the internet as not a commodity but leisure. However, it is every culture's norm to learn and adopt new things especially if they find it beneficial to them so in time definitely more people will learn what is cryptocurrency all about and they will start to enter the crypto world.

[mnporter2001]

"Bitcoin accounted for just 0.4% of the world's money.
Bitcoin was worth only about 1.6% as much as the world's gold supply.
All cryptocurrencies combined accounted for less than 0.7% of the world's money . "
(Taken from investopedia.com )

What we can do to push this percentage up ?
* I do think it is really important to educate people about the cryptocurrencies like Bitcoins, most of them still call it a scam ! , We need to answer these questions as a professional to them .
Considering the immense potential it has , even if one person introduce Bitcoins to 10 people , it's economic value will inturn increase , making it more beneficial for the whole community.

I agree that introducing blockchain technology in teaching will help increase the market share of cryptocurrency. but I don't think it will benefit the nation. Although there are many who have become millionaires thanks to crypto and bitcoin trading. But think, with a free, lawless, and continuous market of whales manipulation, you think it would be safe?
You may not know that, many people are getting more and more losses because of trading and only whales are getting richer. Defi was born to manipulate and it should only have a small capitalization. This is what whales want to be able to manipulate everything easily. I do not encourage people to participate in this market, if you have knowledge, invest in the stock market. That's where real unicorns come from and it's always valuable!

[sunsilk]

Isn't it a great thing that bitcoin's total contribution to the world's money isn't that much? The price is considerably good yet looking to that perspective makes bitcoin a little. If the other percentage of the world's money gets into bitcoin then that will make its value greater.

The age of bitcoin is still young yet it has accumulated around 0.4% of world's money and it's still continuing to become popular and known in every part of the world. I don't think that it's a negative thing to accept instead we should look into the positive perspective regarding that matter.

[Sirait]

I can say, cryptocurrency is still like a 3-year-old baby, too young for cryptocurrency to take over the world transaction system. The next 15 to 20 years is the best time for cryptocurrency because this is the future, the world really needs a change

many countries are currently studying cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, going forward it will be more and more

[Darker45]

It is indeed low. There are of course a lot of factors that affect that. One of which is that Bitcoin is certainly having a hard time competing against a well-established fiat system, which is the one sanctioned by the powerful governments and the elites. Another would be the old challenge resulting from having a currency whose value appreciates over time. Spending, in that case, is expected to be less. This is one of the economic rationale why inflation is somehow necessary; people have to be compelled to buy now rather than later.

[abhiseshakana]

I still feel the most effective way to introduce bitcoin is to use bitcoin in everyday life even though the government prohibits the use of bitcoin as an alternative payment other than a country's legal currency. We can start it from the community. Or when making online transactions, we ask for payment options using bitcoin. This small action will create a chain effect that is curiosity about "what is bitcoin" for those who do not understand or desire to use bitcoin in transactions, especially in the bitcoin community.

With the many frequencies discussing bitcoin, many people will be increasingly curious and find out. The more people know, the more opportunities people will be attracted to and use bitcoin for everyday transactions even if they are secretly between communities. In this way, the foundation of bitcoin penetration will be strong, although the motion is slow but the growth is certain.

[Kemarit]

Cryptocurrency though is still very young, that's why if we are going to compare it to let's say stock market, it is still like a 'dot'. So it is too early to say, perhaps in the next 10-20 years, we will have a good grasp as how big (or small) this market will be. What can we do to push this percentage up? Social media has something to do with it, if they keep on calling and bashing bitcoin then it will have a hard time getting traction, so for me they play a big factor. Of course there is the government, and for some reason, is trying to regulate everything in crypto, including KYC and other measures that can deter our growth. I guess when crypto mature and so it's adoption, it will be a slow process, but definitely, people will find in usefulness and the positive things in can bring to them financially, so crypto doesn't necessarily need some marketing, it will become big naturally..

[mu_enrico]

Educating the market is a complicated thing to do, and often won't be too effective if the market doesn't need or want the product. What we need is a reason to buy (RTB) that appeal to the market according to its needs and wants as the primary focus.

If average Joes ask, "why should I buy Bitcoin?" And your answer is the government is bad, the bank is bad, etc., then you will still get trolled by mainstream Joes. There are lots of Bitcoin property that doesn't involve "ideology." such as, easy to create the wallet, secure, privacy, etc.

[fullhdpixel]

I don't see what's surprising about this. Gold has been around for ages and humans have been making use of gold for a very long time and it's been around before the currencies we have now. So, how do you now compare it with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that have been around for just a decade? I don't see anything surprising or bad about this news to be sincere.

Cryptocurrency is at the level that it is supposed to be. It's not magic and the price is not going to grow magically and become 100% of the world's economy. So relax man and be confident about having 10x growth for bitcoins in coming months as usually after halving bitcoin may grow rapidly and end up sustaining around 10 times higher value than where it was at the times of halving. So, currently being low is not a big deal and we are at the very beginning new range of price levels for bitcoins.

[Findingnemo]

The number looks too low when we compare with total gold supply which is available for centuries and the total fiat value which is under the control of governments so when a decentralized asset is getting popularity in very short time is actually a good thing.We have time to reach new heights in the global value but we are already getting more attention compared to total value.

[Kelvinid]

Ain't surprising to see the economic growth of crypto like this.

Adoption takes awhile the same thing as people realize the importance of gold. Should we think that 10 years or 20 years could be enough? Not for sure.
It really needs more time, years to develop this thing, and much harder as the risk takes in the whole market. If these merchants will start to adopt crypto as another form of currency, no doubts that small players will follow by then. It needs huge support for the community and much needed to have it coming from the government in order to gain more trust which leads to massive crypto adoption.

[Twinkledoe]

Isn't it a great thing that bitcoin's total contribution to the world's money isn't that much? The price is considerably good yet looking to that perspective makes bitcoin a little. If the other percentage of the world's money gets into bitcoin then that will make its value greater.

The age of bitcoin is still young yet it has accumulated around 0.4% of world's money and it's still continuing to become popular and known in every part of the world. I don't think that it's a negative thing to accept instead we should look into the positive perspective regarding that matter.

I have to agree with that. Considering also the population who are into crypto, which is very small as compared to global population. So I am not really surprised about the numbers. For me, that's already good progress and with increasing adoption, we will see more demand for crypto or bitcoin usage. Just compare bitcoin to existing fiat currencies, bitcoin is very young yet the value in the market is already overwhelming. So that is already an accomplishment for crypto esp bitcoin.

[Rengga Jati]

"The current number of unique active users of cryptocurrency wallets is estimated to be between 2.9 million and 5.8 million"
(Taken from Cryptocurrency benchmark study )

Are you sure that the number is the current statistic of the crypto wallet user? 2.9-5.8 M?
You should update the amount. It is the number when the statistic in the year of 2017. Did you take the source from https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/centres/alternative-finance/downloads/2017-04-20-global-cryptocurrency-benchmarking-study.pdf ?? This was research conducted in 2017. Please crosscheck it.

I already searched about the increasing numbers of the users:



This statistic was taken in the latest research by www.statista.com. The statistic shows that in Q1 of 2020, the number almost reaches 50M users. Is this awesome, isn't it? The number keeps rising.

There was also research conducted by https://news.bitcoin.com/the-number-of-cryptocurrency-wallet-users-keeps-rising/, but it is in 2019. The data also showed the rising numbers of crypto wallet users until 2019.

"Stock market capitalization as percent of GDP, 2018 - Country rankings: The average for 2018 based on 63 countries was 70.95 percent."
(Taken from the Global economy)

It was in 2018, can you show how much right now in the current year? I think that from 2018 to 2020, there must be increasing. I'm still searching for the latest update.

What we can do to push this percentage up ?

As I have said, you use the old data statistic. And now, the fact the data show a high increase from year to year. Many more people and countries keep following and involved in the crypto world.

[squatz1]

I still feel the most effective way to introduce bitcoin is to use bitcoin in everyday life even though the government prohibits the use of bitcoin as an alternative payment other than a country's legal currency. We can start it from the community. Or when making online transactions, we ask for payment options using bitcoin. This small action will create a chain effect that is curiosity about "what is bitcoin" for those who do not understand or desire to use bitcoin in transactions, especially in the bitcoin community.

With the many frequencies discussing bitcoin, many people will be increasingly curious and find out. The more people know, the more opportunities people will be attracted to and use bitcoin for everyday transactions even if they are secretly between communities. In this way, the foundation of bitcoin penetration will be strong, although the motion is slow but the growth is certain.

The government (at least in the US) and most western nations don't do this though, they don't stop people from using cryptocurrencies. If everyone in the US -- consumers and business people - wanted to start using crypto for their transcations, they could. The problem lies in the fact that people don't want to use them for many reason: some of these are as follows

1. They're not educated on cryptocurrencies and they think it's too intricate to use, which for some I could see how that is the case. Some older person who runs their diner would much rather swipe a credit card then try to manage their crypto wallet and their keys and so on. The best thing to do is teach people about the savings (not paying 1-3% to a CC processor and dealing with chargebacks)

2. Fees are a bit too high and the crypto is a bit too volatile - People don't want to deal with this, and there most likely isn't enough adoption to even warrant businesses setting up the infrastructure to accept crypto.

But yes, the value is pretty low and I do hope this changes.

[exstasie]

"Stock market capitalization as percent of GDP, 2018 - Country rankings: The average for 2018 based on 63 countries was 70.95 percent."
(Taken from the Global economy)

To put this in perspective, the oldest stock market goes as far back as the 16th century and the wall street market was established around 1792 IIRC. Bitcoins' Genesis block was mined in 2009.

This post wins the thread. Bitcoiners need to exercise some patience.

In 2017, the BTC market reached almost 5% of the size of the gold market. After existing for 8 years. That's incredible to me, beyond all expectations.

Everyone should just consider themselves lucky to be early adopters. When the BTC market does finally reach, for example, the size of the gold market, all these buying opportunities will be gone. Even at $10K, middle class people are being priced out of owning a whole BTC. Imagine when the price does another 40x from here.