CoinMarketCap offers historical snapshots, which are basically like a time machine that allows you to look at the state of the crypto market at a point in the past. These historical snapshots give perspective on the crypto market, showing how far it has come and how the 2018 bear market isn’t bad at all.
Plenty of crypto investors have become depressed with the situation in 2018, having seen Bitcoin decline from USD 20,000 to as low as USD 5,800, a 71% decline. The CoinMarketCap snapshot from 17 December 2017 shows Bitcoin with a market cap of USD 327 billion, versus USD 111 billion today 13 September 2018. At that point, five other cryptocurrencies had a market cap in excess of USD 10 billion: Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Litecoin, and Cardano, and those altcoins actually rose significantly through January 2018. Whereas now, the entire altcoin market has a market cap of USD 84 billion, with only Ethereum and Ripple holding above USD 10 billion.
However, when rewinding to 5 January 2014, during the rally that brought Bitcoin to USD 1,000 for the first time, it can be seen how much the crypto market has grown, even at current levels. In early 2014, Bitcoin was becoming mainstream and there were building hype and optimism, yet Bitcoin’s price was less than USD 1,000 with a market cap just over USD 10 billion. This is about the same as the market cap of Ripple currently, which is an altcoin that is much weaker than Bitcoin and less than 10% of the current Bitcoin market cap.
At that time, there were no other cryptocurrencies with a market cap in excess of USD 1 billion. Litecoin was #2 at USD 617 million, with Ripple a distant #3 at USD 219 million. Compare this to the present day where there are 15 cryptocurrencies with a market cap in excess of USD 1 billion. Also, at that time, only 67 cryptocurrencies were listed on CoinMarketCap, versus 1,944 on CoinMarketCap as of this writing.
When looking at 28 April 2013, the difference with the present day is even more extreme. This was around the time that Bitcoin first rallied to over USD 100. At that time, Bitcoin’s market cap was USD 1.5 billion, equivalent to modern day Dash which sits at #12 on CoinMarketCap. Also, there were only seven cryptocurrencies recorded on CoinMarketCap at that time, the six altcoins having a combined market cap of less than USD 100 million, most of which was Litecoin at USD 75 million.
Essentially, there was practically no altcoin market only five years ago when compared to the present day. The number of altcoins has proliferated from fewer than ten to nearly 2,000, and market caps have boomed from millions to billions of US dollars. CoinMarketCap historical snapshots make it clear that 2018 is not that significant a bear market at all.
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