If Bitcoin Were a Company, Would It Rank in the World’s Top 5?
The oldest and most widely used cryptocurrency, bitcoin, also has the highest market capitalization among its cryptocurrency peers. At $2.37 trillion, it holds a comfortable lead over the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, ether, whose capitalization is only one-fifth to one-quarter of bitcoin’s. [1]
But how would bitcoin fare if it were a publicly traded company? Would it make it into the top ten—or even the top five? Let’s take a look.
The most valuable publicly traded company today is the American technology giant Nvidia, with a market capitalization of $4.44 trillion. Back in April, its value was roughly half that. [2] As recently as mid-May, the global market capitalization ranking was led by another technology giant, Microsoft, which now holds the second position at $3.88 trillion. The bronze medal currently belongs to Apple, with a market value of $3.37 trillion.
Fourth place currently belongs to Alphabet (Google), valued at $2.43 trillion, followed by Amazon at $2.36 trillion. From a hypothetical standpoint, bitcoin would slot between Alphabet and Amazon—around $10 billion ahead of Amazon and just over $60 billion behind Alphabet.
Here’s how the ranking would look:
* Bitcoin is not a company, but its total market value is shown here for comparison.
As recent months have shown, the list of the world’s most valuable companies can shift quickly. Few would have predicted a year or two ago that Apple would be dethroned. The case of Tesla is even more striking—it now barely holds the tenth spot, only $90 billion ahead of Berkshire Hathaway in eleventh.
It is, however, unsurprising that bitcoin would rank among the global top five by market capitalization. It is often said that its price moves in a manner similar to major tech stocks, sharing their susceptibility to volatility. Still, the past two years have shown a clear upward trend in bitcoin’s value.