RE: Can you all take a take a distance ? : How long can this madness continue ?
The Market Capitalisation is in some ways a deceptive value when looking at crypto projects. A share of a a bank is not really the same thing as a bitcoin or crypto token. The share of the bank does not represent the value of the deposited funds that the bank holds, it represents the markets valuation of the whole enterprise including assets like property owned by the bank etc.
The value of a bitcoin in some way represents the "deposited" funds of a bitcoin account holder, and is simultaneously just speculation.
Bitcoin is decentralised and has no "assets" its is just a concept and some open source software. What does the value of a bitcoin represent? What the next guy will pay for it based on his belief in the strength and cohesion of the bitcoin community of users.
The market cap is totally insubstantial. if everyone wants to get out at the same time, the market cap disappears in a puff of smoke. I guess the same applies to shares in Citigroup or JP Morgan, although they have some assets to liquidate and pay out shareholders if it tanks, while Bitcoin has zip.
It is indeed a bit strange to compare market cap to the value of an existing company. But ok we dont have anything else. It's the valuation of the vehicle we try to get out a lot of money :)
But indeed no backup. No state to bail out if it ever goes wrong. Interesting times coming up :)