Many times since I've known about cryptocurrencies, I've thought to myself, if I had done this trade or these trades, I would have made many thousands of dollars sometimes more than I ever did in an entire year. https://i.imgur.com/FFKfTVE.jpg To put this into perspective, I try to think to myself, many people go to sleep every day thinking: "I might not have eaten to full satiation today but tomorrow, tomorrow might be different." This is part of the reality we live in. The eight richest men possess more than the half of the world's poorest and the share of the wealthiest is growing. [[source](https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/just-8-men-own-same-wealth-half-world)] Whether or not, the powers that ought not to be, created the current situation humanity is in today, mostly intentionally or unintentionally, they won't listen to our solutions, in fact they will try to stop us any of our actions that would challenge their pyramid of power. So no matter what brought us in the situation we're in today, those of us who want a better world need to design and bring about the much needed fixes. ## Cryptocurrencies Cryptocurrency is a new technology created in January 2009 with the first cryptocurrency named Bitcoin. If their current growth rate of the past couple of years continue, they will soon represent most of the world currency value. In the current post I will try to make those stats and trends as easy to comprehend and verify as possible. I will give an in-depth explanation of what is Bitcoin and a little primer on cryptocurrencies in an upcoming post. ## Cryptocurrency Markets Are Huge!

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The combined value (market cap) of all cryptocurrencies currently sits at around [$117B](https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/). It's an all-time high. If cryptocurrency were a company it would be the 57th biggest one by market cap. [[Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/global2000/list/#header:marketValue_sortreverse:true)] If cryptocurrencies were compare to the M3 (the total amount of money of a country), it would rank cryptocurrencies as the 54th biggest economy, right between Bangladesh and New Zealand. Cryptocurrencies' market cap have gone up [908%](https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/) in the last 365 days, from $11,7B to $117B. At this rate, cryptocurrencies would surpass Apple's market cap of $752B in under a year and become part of the G20, ranking as the 18th biggest economy. In less than 2 years, cryptocurrencies would rank as the third biggest economy, right under China and the USA and 1 year later. They would then represent $120T. As of January 1 2017, all fiat currencies, stock and gold markets combined equated to roughly $159T. [[souce](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html): Economy - under broad money.] These are only extrapolations of past trends but they are very interesting nonetheless. If these trends hold, cryptocurrrencies will rapidly become a real challenge to all national currencies. The equation: $117B*10.08*10.08*10.08≈$120T ## Investing Our Time Wisely

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I've known about cryptocurrencies since July 2011. I've began reading about them daily in 2013 and began investing in the same year. (I might have erroneously stated 2012 in the past.) I've been telling people to have a serious look into cryptocurrency since 2014 and have begun encouraging people to invest in early 2015 when I felt like Bitcoin's biggest bubble had passed. Cryptocurrencies are a form of currency or money and have a nominal value in dollars. Their value fluctuate in relation with the offer and demand on online markets, called exchanges. These exchanges are websites where anyone can log onto and buy or sell cryptocurrencies. These exchanges act like the different [stock exchanges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stock_exchanges). A list of close to 500 active cryptocurrencies can be found here at [coinmarketcap.com](https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/). It also list more than 400 other cryptocurrencies which have low to no activities which mean are possibly not being used anymore. Clicking on the price of each cryptocurrencies on the list will bring up a page listing the biggest exchanges for each cryptocurrencies. Here's an [example](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets) of such a list for Bitcoin which currently is the cryptocurrency with the biggest market cap. The market cap of Bitcoin is the total value of all Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency space overall price performances are simply staggering. No matter what is anyone's take on cryptocurrencies or if they ever heard about them, their price performance since their debut, make it so that anyone in their right mind, must seriously begin to consider allocating time to their investigation. ## Comparing Cryptocurrencies To Stock Markets

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Bitcoin and Ethereum's performance over the last couple of years leave the best performing stocks of "all-time" in the dust. (Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap.) In 2016, only 8 companies of the S&P 500 had a better price performance than 2016 Bitcoin performance and only 2 of these 8 companies have a bigger market cap than current Bitcoin market cap. [[source](http://fortune.com/2016/12/30/best-stocks-fortune-500-companies-2016/)] Ethereum was sold at 0.29$-0.32$ on its [ICO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_coin_offering) lauch date of 22 July to 5 August 2014. It's current price, on July 17, is 184$. This is an increase of 84,275% over 3 year. [[source](https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/07/22/launching-the-ether-sale/)] Other interesting stats on all-time best performing stocks can be seen [here](http://traderhq.com/best-investments-all-time/). ### Bitcoin Price

The Graph

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### Cryptocurrencies Market Cap (In Billions) https://i.imgur.com/QjtasXF.png ## Shares Of Top 5 Cryptocurrencies Market Cap

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- Bitcoin (47.26%) - Ethereum (21.49%) - Ripple (5.88%) - Bitcoin Cash (3.89%) - NEM (2.10%) - Litecoin (2.05%) - Ethereum Classic (1.23%) - Dash (1.22%) - IOTA (1.13%) - (Found more [here](https://cryptolization.com/)) ## Cryptocurrencies In Numbers Though the current cryptocurrency trends have an upper limit, they will continue their growth and help us to create a better, more enjoyable world. I will repeat my simple comparison from my previous post which can help people understand why cryptocurrencies are shifting power away from central authorities and how this is greatly benefiting everyone. I want to add, cryptocurrencies cost less to transact than fiat-currencies. They can also be used as contracts, smart contracts, systems of item tracking and much more. ### National Currencies - The cost of creating new money is negligible. - The future creation rate is unknown and decided by a small group. - They can be counter-fitted. - Nobody knows exactly how much money there is. - Benefit those who benefit from the growing money supply, at the expense of everyone else. (It's that simple.) ### Bitcoin - The cost of creating Bitcoin is non-negligible. - The exact future creation rate is known. - They can't be counter-fitted. - Everyone can know exactly how much Bitcoin has been created. - Benefit everyone fairly. ## The Upward Trends Of Cryptocurrencies

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This great shift of wealth from national currencies to cryptocurrencies is well on its way and as I said will continue its course. Only a black swan even could reverse the current trends. Anyone with some money sitting somewhere can benefit from these trends and will benefit from learning about why these trends will most likely continue in the direction they have for the past couple of years. As I explain how cryptocurrencies are created, the reasons why these upward trends will continue will become clearer. Let me just say, hardware miners capable of mining cryptocurrencies have become the most profitable commodities as well as the cryptoccurrencies themselves. Cryptocurrencies based on other mining process than [POW](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency#Proof-of-work_schemes), like those based on [DPOS](https://steemit.com/dpos/@dantheman/dpos-consensus-algorithm-this-missing-white-paper) such as Bitshares, Steem and EOS could very soon change that meaning those process could become more profitable. ## Creating Enjoyable Human Experiences!

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If anyone of us lack water to drink and food to eat, no bits of computer data, paper money or precious metals could ever make up for it. Let us not forget that what we fundamentally value the most is the food and water that sustain us, and what makes our consciousness able enjoy itself. If there are people dying of hunger and going insane all around us because of the barbaric ways of our current society, then no amount of food could ever be enough to satiate our universal hunger for justice. Let's try to avoid greedily acquiring bits of digital information os subjective value. Let's instead favor creating meaningful and enjoyable human experiences. ## Share Your Truths And Humbly Admit Your Mistakes! We share our truths so as to maximize our life's enjoyment. These truths are our personal truths and fluctuate ever closer to a greater truth. Let us not forget the current faith of those who go hungry, those who have lost their freedom to injustices and anyone going through some hardships whatever those are. Let's all look to improve our ways of life and spreading this idea far and wide. ## Steemit's Popularity Is Still Skyrocketing! Steem is a cryptocurrency. It allows for new feature Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies don't have. Click [here](https://steemit.com/steem/@teamsteem/steem-an-in-depth-overvie) to learn more. Steemit.com is still quite small but its potential is infinite and its popularity is still rocketing! Share the fun by inviting your friends! [

](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/steemit.com) ## Approving My Witness! I'm a couple of thousands minnow votes away from reaching the top 50 witnesses or 1-2 whales votes. Would you consider voting for my witness [here](https://steemit.com/~witnesses) as to help us Steeming the world we all long for? ([Your 30 most important Steem votes.](https://steemit.com/witness/@teamsteem/what-are-steem-witnesses-and-why-you-should-support-them)) Thank you for reading and for commenting! I read all comments! ### Good To Know I use [Markdown Pad](http://markdownpad.com/) (free version) to create my posts and I recommend it to everyone. [How](https://steemit.com/steemit-help/@krnel/how-to-align-images-in-steemit-posts-left-right-and-center) to align pictures. ### Get On The Chats! Not the private messages but in the chat rooms. These are some of the best places to makes some Steem friends. - [Official Steemit.chat](https://steemit.chat/) - [SteemSpeak.com](https://discord.gg/sqxV63P) @fyrstikken @fyrst-witness (24h/7 Voice chat) - [Peace, Abundance, Liberty](https://discord.gg/6KUGbE) @aggroed @ausbitbank @teamsteem & More (Minnow Support Project) - [Whareshares](https://discord.gg/pj6DDZ) @fuzzyvest @officialfuzzy - [The Pirate Podcast Raido](https://discord.gg/uDAQH9) @sirlunchthehost @beanz - [Steemit Talk Podcast](https://discord.gg/aTmA2k) @steemittalk - [Steemit 101](https://discord.gg/fDvtCP) @mrviquez ### Find Out More! - _{^{["Stand for What Feels Best!"](https://steemit.com/joy/@teamsteem/thanks-to-steemit-i-feel-better-than-ever) (Money in the world today is created out of thin air by a small elite group at the expense of everyone else.)}} - _{^{["Steem: An In-Depth Overview!](https://steemit.com/steem/@teamsteem/steem-an-in-depth-overview)" (The most in-depth and clearest guide to understand what Steem is and what it can do for you!) (Reached top #1)}} - _{^{["The Ultimate Steem Guide!](https://steemit.com/steem/@teamsteem/the-ultimate-steem-guide)" (How to Use Steem: The revamped edition.) (Reached top #1)}} - _{^{["What Are Steem Witnesses And Why You Should Support Them!"](https://steemit.com/witness/@teamsteem/what-are-steem-witnesses-and-why-you-should-support-them) (Your 30 most important Steem vote.)}} - _{^{["Some Steem Tips For Some Steem Success!"](https://steemit.com/joy/@teamsteem/some-steem-tips-for-some-steem-success) (Who to follow and many more Steem fundamentals every serious Steemians should know!)}} - _{^{["Hello Steemit! - Coinmarketcap.com Introduced Me!"](https://steemit.com/almost-famous/@teamsteem/hello-steemit-coinmaketcap-com-introduced-me) (Template people can follow for their own introduction post. It list my most favorite short video and documentaries.)}} - _{^{["Creating The World We Long For!"](https://steemit.com/promoting-steem/@teamsteem/creating-the-world-we-long-for) (My last post from my previous series, listing my 16 previous posts.)}} - _{^{["#1 Toward A More Merciful World!"](https://steemit.com/joy/@teamsteem/toward-a-more-merciful-world)
- _{^{["#2 United We Stand!"](https://steemit.com/joy/@teamsteem/united-we-stand)
- _{^{["Thank you Dan Larimer! You are a great mentor!"](https://steemit.com/liberty/@teamsteem/thank-you-dan-larimer-you-are-a-great-mentor) (Dan is the Ex-CTO of Steemit)}}
- _{^{["Steemit.com Set To Become The World's Most Popular Website"](https://steemit.com/steem/@teamsteem/steemit-com-set-to-become-the-world-s-most-popular-website) (Part of The Ultimate Steembook)}}
- _{^{["The most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard"](https://steemit.com/lyrics/@teamsteem/the-most-beautiful-thing-i-ve-ever-heard) (My best paid post at 8,000$)}}

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