The value of all Bitcoins in circulation has grown by quite a margin these past few years. Going from a worthless cryptocurrency to a disruptive financial force has been a powerful experience for everyone who has followed Bitcoin since the early days. Moreover, we have seen other popular currencies emerge as well. Amazingly, the current overall cryptocurrency market cap is greater than the sum of broad money in the 64 poorest countries in the world. In other words, all of cryptocurrency is worth more than one-third of the countries on this planet combined.

Cryptocurrency Should Never be Underestimated

The people who ignored cryptocurrency over the past few years will receive a wake-up call very soon. In fact, the value of all cryptocurrencies combined has taken on such proportions that it is difficult to remember none of these currencies had any value a decade ago. In fact, most of the cryptocurrencies in circulation today did not even exist a few years ago. A lot has changed in the world of money, to say the least.

At the time of writing, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization is nearly US$139 billion. Earlier this year, that number was hovering well below the US$60 billion mark. A lot of money has been poured into cryptocurrencies these past few months, and it looks like the overall bullish trend will not be relenting anytime soon. There is still a lot of volatility in cryptocurrencies, but things are slowly falling into place on a global scale.

Bitcoin is still the clear market leader. Its own market cap is nearly half that of the overall cryptocurrency market at the moment, and no competitor has even come close. This also goes to show that without all of those other currencies, the cryptocurrency market cap would be half of what it is right now. There is a clearly defined relationship between Bitcoin and all of the alternative cryptocurrencies in existence. So far, this system seems to be working quite well, despite the challenges encountered along the way.

Looking at the bigger picture, the total cryptocurrency market cap is larger than the sum of the stock of broad money in 64 countries around the world.  That may not say much to the average person, but it means all cryptocurrencies combined are worth more than one-third of all of the countries combined right now. This is quite a milestone for this “fake internet money” some people so readily dismiss to this very day.

This list of 64 countries includes regions with which many readers may not be familiar. There is a lot of poverty in the world today and the graphic above illustrates that point perfectly. Most of the countries on this list are located in Africa and Middle America, which comes as no real surprise. It also includes nations such as Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, Belize, Georgia, and Barbados. These are not the biggest countries in the world, but they suffer nonetheless from the same old problems caused by the current financial ecosystem which need to be addressed.

As of August 14, Bitcoin has surpassed the US$4,150 mark for the first time, yet this may very well be only the beginning of its full growth potential over the next few years. Other currencies such as Ethereum, Dash, Monero, and Litecoin are only just starting to shine as well. In a few years from now, we could be talking about multi-trillion dollar cryptocurrency market caps. If that were to happen, cryptocurrencies combined would easily surpass the sum of the stock of broad money in over 50% of the world’s countries, if not two-thirds.

All of this goes to show cryptocurrency should not be ignored. Even though not everyone will invest in Bitcoin or altcoins — nor should they if they haven’t first done their research — it is a good time to start paying attention to this industry. Cryptocurrencies may not displace traditional currencies anytime soon, but they are certainly making a lot of waves right now. It will be interesting to see how this situation evolves over the coming years.