The Market Capitalization of Bitcoin and Ethereum Has Skyrocketed

The recovery posted by Bitcoin in recentweeks has translated into a market capitalization higher than $800 billion. Some market analysts believe that Bitcoin could reach a market capitalization in excess of one trillion dollars this year if bullish sentiment returns to the major cryptocurrency exchanges. Ethereum, meanwhile, has also appreciated the market cap of its main ETH token to $345 billion, which represents a 45% increase in just two weeks.

Given the fact that the Ethereum network is the most active and diverse in terms of ERC20 tokens, it would be tempting to think about a total market capitalization greater than Bitcoin, but there fundamental reasons this will never be the case. Throughout last week, Bitcoin's $3,000 price slide was characterized as a bear trend by some market analysts. While other experts argued that the slide in prices was likely to end, the cryptocurrency remained in the red for most of the week.

Market observers still argue about the short- and long-term prospects of Bitcoin and Ethereum. With that said, it's clear that this has not impacted the performance of Bitcoin this week. Bitcoin and Ethereum remain in first and second place, with Ripple and Tether occupying the third and fourth spots, but ETH does not have a chance of flipping Bitcoin's market cap because it is still very far from achieving real-life circulation.

The reality of Ethereum is that its initial development was not intended to compete against Bitcoin as a digital currency. It would be more likely for other ERC20 tokens to circulate instead of the original ETH, but they would need to catch up to Bitcoin first. Even with all the decentralized finance projects supporting and improving the Ethereum network, there is not a single ERC20 token that can come close to Bitcoin as the leading cryptocurrency.

This week, Ethereum did manage to substantially surpass Ripple in market cap. However, this achievement was likely due to the fact that there is so much talk around cryptocurrency this week that people are willing to overlook the fact that Ethereum is actually outperforming Bitcoin, at least for the time being. Bitcoin is currently on a bullish trend, and it appears that the cryptocurrency will continue to stay above the current threshold.