Total crypto mcap crosses $2.5T again amid increased investor interest after five months of struggle

After a five-month gap, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies once again surged past the $2.5 trillion mark as crypto investors continue to bet on digital currencies along with expectations that the first Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund will reportedly begin trading in the week ahead. The move is expected to boost investors’ confidence further. The crypto market cap had last touched $2.54 trillion on May 12, 2021. Bitcoin was already up nearly 11 per cent in the past seven days to nearly $61,000 at the time of filing this report, while Ethereum and Polkadot jumped nearly 9 per cent and 16.5 per cent respectively, data from CoinMarketCap showed. The total crypto market value had crossed $2.5 trillion on Saturday before it declined marginally to $2.47 trillion, at the time of filing this report. 

One of the biggest beneficiaries of Bitcoin’s bull run is its biggest public holder MicroStrategy. The company held 114,041 bitcoins bought at an aggregate amount of $3.16 billion that had more than doubled to nearly $7 billion, as per the latest data from Bitcoin Treasuries. The second biggest public holder of Bitcoin, Tesla with 43,200 Bitcoins saw total value growing up from $1.5 billion to $2.62 billion.

Also read: Crypto country: India among top 10 nations with most awareness, interest in cryptocurrencies, says report

Importantly, the US is now the world’s largest hub of Bitcoin mining, replacing China two months after the country banned crypto mining this year. According to a report by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, China’s share in hashrate globally dropped from 44 per cent in May to zero by July while the US share jumped from 17 per cent in April to 35.4 per cent in August. On the second and third sport was Kazakhstan with an 18.1 per cent share and the Russian Federation with an 11 per cent share in the global bitcoin network hashrate by the end of August 2021. 

Investments into crypto assets and funds had recorded the eighth straight week of inflows (with $226.2 million coming in the second week of October, according to the data shared in the digital asset management firm CoinShares’ weekly report on digital asset fund flows. The investments had brought the eight-week run of inflows to $638 million while year-to-date inflows stood at $6.3 billion. The total assets under management (AuM) of global digital assets were $66.7 billion, up from $34.5 billion as of January 8, 2021.