The crypto market capitalization, that measures the combined notional value
The crypto market capitalization, that measures the combined notional value of all digital currencies, reached $835.7 billion on January 7th, 2018 at nearly 11:17 UTC, as indicated by CoinMarketCap.
This means that cryptocurrency, as an investment class, was worth more than Facebook and Twitter as well as the narrow money supplies of all but eight countries.
The crypto market cap sits at just $136.3 billion today, representing an approximate plunge of 84%. What is even more remarkable is that this this happened since the number of cryptocurrency projects tracked by CoinMarketCap has swelled to 2,086.
Nobody will deny that 2018 proved to be a tough year for investors, however, it was all bad for the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole. The bear market obliged the investors to eye the projects with greater scrutiny, and regulatory clampdowns have killed the ICO market.
Most importantly, this market plunge didn’t stop developers from from keeping to build out the techs which will help bitcoin and altcoin networks scale to accommodate mainstream adoption, whenever that does arrive.
For example, The Lightning Network has continued to see its total capacity grow, in spite of the fact that the bitcoin price has been in plunge. Furthermore, the median bitcoin transaction fee has fallen to a more than 3 year low, even as the network processes about 75% more payments on a regularly than it did the last time fees were this low.
What to speak of the work is complete, the fraud is still far too common in the cryptocurrency industry, and many much-hyped applications of blockchain technology need to be demonstrated to utility compared to their centralized counterparts. Somehow, $700 billion in losses later, several projects still seem overvalued.
In any case, as financial specialists anticipate the next great bull run, the industry will ideally rise up out of Crypto Winter as a progressively mature ecosystem, one better prepared to build up itself as in excess of a passing prevailing fashion.