BTC is now the world's ninth largest "currency"?

At a price of $8,940, the market value of Bitcoin will exceed the monetary base (reserve currency) of South Korea. The current BTC price is $9,240, which makes Bitcoin rank ninth compared to many fiat currencies. If we follow Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's positioning of Bitcoin as the native currency of the Internet, we can even call it the ninth largest currency in the world. As the price of BTC continues to rise in the future, Bitcoin is expected to continue to improve its ranking.

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Which country has the largest monetary base in the world?

The answer may surprise you. According to data compiled by Crypto Voices, gold is still the world's largest monetary system by far, with a total supply of nearly $8 trillion. However, "digital gold" Bitcoin is also trying to catch up.

So, what exactly is the monetary base? According to Wikipedia, it refers to the planned amount of currency issued by the central bank and the total amount of currency purchased by overseas students. Expressed in a formula: monetary base = currency in circulation + reserves. Therefore, a country's monetary base is not measured by its gold reserves.

Data source: Crypto Voices

Monetary base = net government debt assets + net external financial assets + claims on commercial banks + net other assets. As the US government debt exceeds $25 trillion, despite being the world's largest economy, the US ranks fourth in terms of monetary base, behind Japan, China and the eurozone.

You might be wondering why oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are not included in this report. Is it because most of their wealth is in oil rather than fiat? Crypto Voices said:

“Since Saudi Arabia and Denmark are anchor currencies, their base currencies are the U.S. dollar and the euro respectively and should not be counted. The correct comparison is to compare the monetary base value of the central bank of each currency.”

Bitcoin is now the ninth largest currency in the world

If you don’t count gold and silver, Bitcoin is now the ninth-largest currency in the world. It ranks 10th after the two precious metals (and its current market capitalization is already close to the monetary base of Russia).

How important is this? The current market value of BTC is $164.9 billion, and some analysts predict that by the end of 2019, BTC will be worth more than $40,000, and its market value may exceed $700 billion, surpassing the United Kingdom and becoming the fifth largest currency. Bitcoin has only been around for 10 years.