By George Ward
The largest crypto token, Bitcoin, is reportedly above card payment company VISA in market capitalization. This comes despite the broader crypto market volatility, where the prices of most digital assets were significantly impacted.
A New High for Bitcoin
According to the latest data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin has hit over $479 billion in its overall evaluation. In contrast, the card payment giant VISA’s market cap is nearly $460 billion, as revealed by tradingeconomics.com.
Bitcoin’s entry into the mainstream financial sector has led to changes in most aspects of the global monetary landscape, with questions from economists and governments about its threat to the conventional system. Despite the widespread skepticism and unpredictability of Bitcoin’s impact on the traditional sector, its market capitalization has risen since its emergence in 2009.
As one of the leading card payment service providers, VISA has a significant presence in almost all countries. Yet, the company is currently trailing behind Bitcoin in market cap.
Meanwhile, VISA’s $460 million market capitalization is from its publicly traded shares which measure the firm’s worth in the global financial market. It is attractive to note that Bitcoin’s current milestone comes amid the ongoing crypto market correction.
Despite the slight fluctuation in its market capitalization, VISA still maintains its grip in the digital card payment sector. The company is reportedly exploring avenues to integrate crypto card payment among its services which will open more ways for future growth.
How Bitcoin Outperformed Traditional Firms
As a decentralized platform where transactions are out of the control of financial institutions or the state, Bitcoin uses a peer-to-peer (P2P) system to facilitate transactions via blockchain protocol. Unlike fiat currencies like the USD, which are under the management of central banks, Bitcoin’s overall supply is 21 million coins.
Furthermore, the asset’s scarcity makes it an attractive investment option to investors with a high-risk appetite more than the fiats, usually devalued by the monetary policymakers. Bitcoin has had remarkable dominance over large firms across all sectors regarding investment portfolios.
For example, in the last days of January, Bitcoin performs well more than the world’s largest healthcare company, Johnson and Johnson. Over the past few years, many notable brands in the traditional financial sectors have exposure to Bitcoin by offering BTC-related services to their wealthy clients.
Despite its high volatility rate, Bitcoin is usually seen as a competitor to gold as a reserve asset, even as the king of metals continues to hold sway among investors. Due to its status as the pioneer crypto asset, Bitcoin has continued to enjoy widespread adoption by individual and institutional investors.