In recent weeks, Bitcoin had already become the largest “bank” in the world. Bitcoin ranks number 13 in financial assets without distinction of category.
With a market capitalization of USD 505 billion, Bitcoin (BTC) surpassed Visa. The world’s largest finance company is valued at USD 497 billion.
At the time of writing this article, the price of Bitcoin is around USD 27,100 per unit. The pioneering cryptocurrency now leads the ranking of financial service entities, according to capitalization.
The price of Bitcoin has increased by 275% since January 1st, 2020 when it was trading at USD 7,200 per unit. In that period of time, the Visa share went from USD 188 to USD 213, that is, it had an increase of 13%.
The three finance companies that follow Visa are JP Morgan, Mastercard, and PayPal. The latter is valued at USD 276 billion and has nearly doubled due to the capitalization of Bitcoin, according to Google Finance.
Visa has an obvious advantage regarding its adoption as a means of payment. This company processed around 140.8 billion transactions in 2020, according to its annual report. In that same time, there were around 114 million transactions in Bitcoin.
Concerning the amounts transferred, even though the orders are smaller, Visa is also ahead. While the company claims to have processed payments for USD 8.8 trillion, there were transfers for around USD 0.7 trillion worth of Bitcoin.
The giant credit card network is no stranger to what is happening with Bitcoin. Two years ago, the company began studying how to enter the cryptocurrency market. “We continue to think of Visa as a network of networks,” said Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is the World’s Most Valuable “Bank”
Bitcoin had already become the world’s most valuable “bank” in mid-December when it surpassed JP Morgan. The halving that occurred in May and recent multi-million US dollar institutional investments in this crypto asset seem to have catalyzed its current bullish rally.
Taking into account all financial assets regardless of categories, Bitcoin ranks number 13, according to a list by CompaniesMarketCap.com. It should be above Berkshire Hathaway, Tesla, and Alibaba to be among the top ten. Something like this would happen if the other assets maintained their current price and if each BTC were worth USD 34,424.
If the forecasts by analysts like Willy Woo and the specialists of the Kraken exchange come true, this could happen and be even higher. They assume that each Bitcoin could be worth at least USD 200,000 in 2021.
Despite this, BTC should still increase its capitalization almost 24 times to outperform gold. The precious metal is the financial asset with the highest capitalization in the market, given that estimates are between USD 8 million and USD 12 trillion.
Some bitcoiners do not consider that seeing Bitcoin at the top of the list is something far-fetched. They believe that the cryptocurrency that Satoshi Nakamoto created will be the world’s next store of value. For example, well-known Bitcoin bull Anthony Pompliano is convinced that “Bitcoin’s market capitalization will exceed that of gold by December 31st, 2029.”
By Alexander Salazar
