Cryptocurrency market cap hits $2 trillion

The market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies in existence surpassed $2 trillion on April 5, according to data from Goingecko, led by the impressive growth of Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and other altcoins in 2021. The cryptocurrency market as a whole has become approximately as valuable as Apple, the second-biggest company in the world after Saudi Arabia’s oil giant, Aramco.

The milestone also comes less than three months after the cryptocurrency market surpassed $1 trillion for the first time back on Jan. 7 when the price of Bitcoin was around $33,000.

In recent months, several major catalysts have fueled both Bitcoin and Ether to rally strongly to new all-time highs. Financial institutions, like PayPal and Visa, are beginning to actively support cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin leading the cryptocurrency market’s uptrend. In 2021, Bitcoin has faced several short-term corrections but has now consistently remained above $50,000 for almost a month, with low volatility compared with altcoins, preventing both ETH and the altcoin market from seeing a severe pullback.

On April 2, Coinbase, the top United States cryptocurrency exchange, announced that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved its S-1 filing. Coinbase is expected to be listed on the Nasdaq exchange on April 14, making it a publicly traded company on the U.S. stock market.

Depending on the performance of the stock, it could also lead exchange tokens such as Binance Coin (BNB), FTX Token (FTT), Huobi Token (HT), SushiSwap’s SUSHI, Uniswap’s UNI and others to rally, mirroring the momentum of COIN. At the same time, some analysts believe that Coinbase’s IPO may bring major volatility in, if not downward price pressure on, the cryptocurrency market, as the date aligns with a big BTC options expiry date.