At its present market cap, Bitcoin has a monetary supply worth in excess of 170 different traditional currencies.
Since its inception, a little more than 10 years ago, Bitcoin (BTC) has witnessed its price rise from barely anything, up to its present price of over 10,185 USD.
In that time, the market capitalization of BTC defined as its circulating supply increased by the value of each unit has soared to reach more than 200 billion USD, making BTC the biggest cryptocurrency ever to exist as well as becoming bigger than numerous traditional currencies.
Albeit BTC and traditional currencies aren’t actually equal regarding how the circulating price is calculated, we can generally gauge where BTC sits in the Global currency rankings by comparing its market capitalization to the M0 money supply of traditional currencies.
The M0 figure is the total value of all the banknotes, coins, and other money substitutes that can be easily converted into cash. The M0 value is also commonly known as “base money” or “narrow money”.
Bitcoin’s Place in the World’s Currency Rankings.
The US dollar (USD) is at present by a wide margin the biggest traditional currency by circulating supply. As confirmed by the US Federal Reserve, there is 1.95 trillion USD worth of Federal Reserve notes and coins in circulation and more than 75% of which is comprised of 100 USD and 20 USD bills.
Next is the Euro (EUR) a relatively new currency that was launched in 2002 and is currently used throughout a large proportion of Europe and by the majority of EU member states.
Similar to the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank keeps up to date records for the total amount of EUR banknotes and coins it puts into circulation. According to the official statistics, there was just below 1.38 trillion EUR’s in circulation at the time of the latest record (July 2020). This has swelled more than triple since the EUR was launched, and the total value is largely comprised of 20 EUR and 50 EUR notes.
The Chinese Yuan (CNY) is the third-largest currency. According to data from TradingEconomics, there are about 8 trillion CNY in circulation, with a comparable value of 1.15 trillion USD. The Japanese Yen (JPY) is a short distance behind in fourth with 106 trillion JPY circulating notes and coins or just over 1 trillion USD when compared against the dollar.
The USD, EUR, CNY, and JPY are the only traditional currencies with an overall M0 capitalization above 1 trillion USD. The fifth-biggest currency by circulating supply is the Indian Rupee (INR), which has more than 31 trillion INR in notes in circulation at present, with a comparable worth of just over 425 billion USD.
So we now turn to BTC which at present occupies the position of sixth-biggest currency by circulating supply, narrowly pushing out the Russian Ruble (RUB) to secure its place.
BTC at present has 18.48 million units in circulation, each worth 10,185 USD at today’s price. This places Bitcoin’s M0 cap at 188 billion USD, making it just below 50% of the value of the INR and just about 10% of the value of the USD. At its present market cap, BTC has a money supply worth in excess of 170 different traditional currencies.
At its record highs, BTC achieved a market capitalization of almost 330 billion USD. At that point, this would have made BTC the fifth biggest global currency.
