Nine years and nine months ago, on May 9, 2013, coinmarketcap.com recorded 14 cryptocurrency assets, and bitcoin’s combined value was $1.24 billion, with 11.13 million bitcoins in circulation at the time. Today, the same website indicates that there are 22,709 crypto assets. In addition, the market capitalization of the crypto economy has grown significantly, increasing by 80,466% since 2013.
The Evolution of the Crypto Economy: From 14 Coins to 22,709 Coins
Although over $1.5 trillion has been lost from the crypto economy since the November 2021 peak, its market cap has still increased by more than 80,466% since 2013. A snapshot of coinmarketcap.com (CMC) on archive.org shows that in 2013, There are 14 coins listed on the website. These included bitcoin, litecoin, peercoin, namecoin, feathercoin, terracoin, devcoin, freicoin, novacoin, chncoin, bbqcoin, mincoin, bitbar and ixcoin. Together, the value of these cryptoassets on May 9, 2013 was just over $1.32 billion.
Top Five Crypto Assets May 9, 2013.
Of course, many of these coins have been forgotten and a large number of today’s best cryptoassets did not exist back then such as ethereum, bnb coin, solana, cardano, tether, usd coin and lavanche. Stablecoins didn’t exist at the time, and today they represent $137 billion worth of the current $1.06 trillion crypto economy. On May 9, 2013, BTC was trading for much less than it is today, when it changed hands at $111.87 per coin. There were only 11.13 million BTC in circulation compared to today’s 19.30 million BTC.
In 2013, BTC’s combined valuation was $1.24 billion, and Litecoin’s (LTC) market capitalization was the second largest. At that time, LTC’s market cap was around $59.05 million, according to the CMC snapshot. Today, LTC’s market cap is much larger, at $6.79 billion. Peercoin’s (PPC) market cap was $5.23 million and despite being an old forgotten coin, PPC’s market cap is around $13.15 million today. Other coins, such as terracoin (TRC), were not as lucky. TRC’s market cap in May 2013 was $1.14 million, and today it has dropped to $340,296. In addition, some coins are so forgotten that they are no longer listed on coin market value aggregation sites such as CMC.
In 2013, there were only a small handful of crypto exchanges, and some of them were sketchy to say the least. Digital currency wallets were also few and far between, and overall the infrastructure of the crypto economy nine years ago was a shell of what it is today. 2022 was a difficult year in the crypto sector, and a large number of businesses collapsed from the downturn. Despite the collapses and hundreds of billions that evaporated from the market, it is a significantly larger forest compared to the small patch of trees it once was in 2013. Besides the internet itself, not many sectors have seen 80,466% growth in less than a decade.
What do you think the future holds for the crypto economy and how do you see it developing in the coming years? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman is the news editor at Bitcoin.com News and a financial technology journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
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