‘YOUWANTWINNERS?’
Why are people flocking to this space? Because some of the gains offered are astronomical, and are unlike what you can get in traditional capital markets... If you stop an average person in the street and ask them about cryptocurrencies, they’ll probably say “Bitcoin” and not much else. But Bitcoin is just the “proof of concept.” There are hundreds of different cryptocurrencies currently traded in the market. The total market capitalization of the entire cryptocurrency space is around $100 billion. Bitcoin is about 40% of that. The market is still heavily dominated though by the current big three – Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple (a fintech blockchain for low-cost, fast, and secure international payments for banks and financial institutions).
ICOS AND INSANE RETURNS
Ripple has grown 20-fold... in the past few months. Ethereum, the current number two, is up more than 30-fold in six months. An $11,000 investment in January would now be worth half a million dollars. There are plenty of other examples. Fourth on the list, Litecoin, is up more than 10-fold in the past six months. Or take Bitshares (around the bottom of the top-10 cryptocurrencies by market cap). Bitshares was created by Dan Larimer, whom I was fortunate enough to catch up with at Consensus, the blockchain conference, in New York in May. A few months ago, Bitshares had a market cap
Why are people flocking to this space? Because some of the
gains offered are astronomical, and are unlike what you can get in traditional capital markets...
Dan Larimer (left), founder of Bitshares, and Tama Churchouse
40 | July 2017
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