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Not my definition but the accepted one is price times number of bitcoins mined so far. Of course by selling 1% of all bitcoins you would clean all order books.

Not my definition but the accepted one is price times number of bitcoins mined so far. Of course by selling 1% of all bitcoins you would clean all order books. However, George Soros used only a few billions to bet against the British pound.

mikeyouse 7y ago
Which is nonsense since so many bitcoins have been lost and there is no underlying asset that owning a bitcoin grants you access to.
- darawk 7y ago
  Sure, but that just makes Bitcoin's market cap smaller, and therefore its expected trading volume relative to similar assets even smaller, and therefore the original commenter's point even more accurate.
kelnos 7y ago
> Not my definition but the accepted one is price times number of bitcoins mined so far. Right, but that's essentially a lazy re-definition of the term. I get that it's a bit wordy to always say, "the current total value of all bitcoins is $X billion", but market cap is specifically about the total value of a security's outstanding shares. If people want bitcoin to be treated seriously as a currency, they should stop using terms that explicitly refer to non-currencies. To put it another way, no one would reasonably talk about something like the "market cap of the Euro"[0], so why would you do that for something else claimed to be a currency? [0] Entertainingly, when I search "euro currency market cap", most of the results that come up are related to cryptocurrency.
- account73466 7y ago
  I guess that one of the reasons for this notation is because Bitcoin is not yet a currency in its common sense (e.g., freely used within a country to be exchanges for products and services) but a speculative asset.
- Melting_Harps 7y ago
  > To put it another way, no one would reasonably talk about something like the "market cap of the Euro"[0], so why would you do that for something else claimed to be a currency? Oh, but they do: https://www.dailysabah.com/finance/2017/12/06/bitcoin-renews-all-time-high-surpasses-ruble-and-sterling-to-become-6th-largest-currency-by-circulation https://www.dailysabah.com/finance/2017/12/06/bitcoin-renews... And while Market Cap may be on its surface misleading, its mere semantics, and is really in reference to what you've described; its just that as you said, its a currency and itself cannot have a strict Market-Cap but its a succinct way to describe the totality of its valuation for all issued satoshi's--which again, is misleading because of the 21 Million, its likely several million are lost forever.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    Er, the article you linked does not even once use the term "market cap" to refer to anything. Semantics are important. Often perception and optics are just as important as reality. Something that's been a hard lesson for me several times in life...

mikeyouse 7y ago

Which is nonsense since so many bitcoins have been lost and there is no underlying asset that owning a bitcoin grants you access to.

darawk 7y ago
Sure, but that just makes Bitcoin's market cap smaller, and therefore its expected trading volume relative to similar assets even smaller, and therefore the original commenter's point even more accurate.

kelnos 7y ago

> Not my definition but the accepted one is price times number of bitcoins mined so far. Right, but that's essentially a lazy re-definition of the term. I get that it's a bit wordy to always say, "the current total value of all bitcoins is $X billion", but market cap is specifically about the total value of a security's outstanding shares. If people want bitcoin to be treated seriously as a currency, they should stop using terms that explicitly refer to non-currencies. To put it another way, no one would reasonably talk about something like the "market cap of the Euro"[0], so why would you do that for something else claimed to be a currency? [0] Entertainingly, when I search "euro currency market cap", most of the results that come up are related to cryptocurrency.

account73466 7y ago
I guess that one of the reasons for this notation is because Bitcoin is not yet a currency in its common sense (e.g., freely used within a country to be exchanges for products and services) but a speculative asset.
Melting_Harps 7y ago
> To put it another way, no one would reasonably talk about something like the "market cap of the Euro"[0], so why would you do that for something else claimed to be a currency? Oh, but they do: https://www.dailysabah.com/finance/2017/12/06/bitcoin-renews-all-time-high-surpasses-ruble-and-sterling-to-become-6th-largest-currency-by-circulation https://www.dailysabah.com/finance/2017/12/06/bitcoin-renews... And while Market Cap may be on its surface misleading, its mere semantics, and is really in reference to what you've described; its just that as you said, its a currency and itself cannot have a strict Market-Cap but its a succinct way to describe the totality of its valuation for all issued satoshi's--which again, is misleading because of the 21 Million, its likely several million are lost forever.
- kelnos 7y ago
  Er, the article you linked does not even once use the term "market cap" to refer to anything. Semantics are important. Often perception and optics are just as important as reality. Something that's been a hard lesson for me several times in life...