At the currency time of writing, Bitcoin is now as big as Russia’s monetary base.
Yes, you read that right! This means Bitcoin is the ninth biggest currency in the world and with the price making further gains, who knows where it will end up…
According to a recent tweet from Crypto Voices showing a graph of the world’s monetary bases, we can see that gold still dominates the monetary systems with a $7.7 trillion supply but over the next few years, Bitcoin could make its move.
When it comes to a country’s monetary base, it is measured in terms of the total amount of currency in circulation or held in commercial deposits in the central banks, rather than its gold reserves.
After gold, you might think that The United States would take second place but it is in fact Japan. But with the $25 trillion debt the US has garnered over the years, this shouldn’t come as much as a surprise.
Nations that are rich in their oil reserves like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia don’t appear the graph. You might think this is because their wealth is held in oil rather than fiat but as Crypto Voice says:
“Don’t know their methodologies, but Saudi Arabia and Denmark, for example, are pegged currencies, so their base money is the USD and EUR, respectively, and shouldn’t be counted. The correct economic comparison is the monetary base value of each currency’s central bank.”
Taking silver and gold out of the equation, Bitcoin is the ninth biggest currency in the world. Even with the two assets included, it is the eleventh biggest, which is still impressive for a currency that’s only been around ten years.
Bitcoinist ask how significant this is, to which they say:
“With a market cap currently at $162 billion and with some analysts predicting a BTC value of over $40k by the end of 2019, after just 10 years of being created, it’s a pretty big deal indeed.”
With the adoption of crypto rising, it could be but a few years before it catches up with the monetary base of that like India, Switzerland, UK and even the US.
Investment Disclaimer