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Back in December 2017 Bitcoin fever was at its peak. Everyone was talking about cryptocurrencies, telling you to buy, sell or hold, and new cryptos were coming out every week. While things have calmed down since then, there’s still a lot of buzz around cryptocurrencies, but what do we really know about them? We explored the latest statistics to see who is jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon.
Quick overview
- 97% of Brits haven’t bought cryptocurrency.
- 31% of Brits aren’t buying crypto because they believe its too high of a risk.
- Of the 3% of Brits who have bought cryptocurrency, 79% have bought Bitcoin.
- There’s a post every 3 seconds on social media about Bitcoin alone.
- Bitcoin’s price fell from over $10,000 in January 2018 to $3,600 in December 2018.
Every 3 seconds
There is a post on social media about Bitcoin.
Who is buying cryptocurrency?
Finder conducted a survey of 2,000 Brits to find out who is buying cryptocurrency. 2.85% of Brits are buying cryptocurrencies in the UK, this amounts to over 1.1 million people who have invested – but who are they and what are they buying?
- Of those who have holdings in cryptocurrency, 79% have bought Bitcoin.
- 5% of millennials have invested.
- 3% of Gen X have bought into crypto.
- While just 2% of baby boomers have jumped onto the crypto bandwagon.
- Men are more likely to have bought crypto than women, sitting at 4% compared to 2% for women.
79%
Of those invested in cryptocurrencies have bought Bitcoin.
For more insights see the full results of the survey.
Market capitalisation
Market capitalisation is effectively a way of measuring the relative size of a cryptocurrency, it is calculated by multiplying the price of a coin and its circulating supply. So what are the top 10 cryptocurrencies?
Bitcoin is unsurprisingly still the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, however there are some relative newcomers to the top 10 in 2019 such as Binance Coin (7th) and Tether (8th).
| Rank | Name | Market Cap ($) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bitcoin | $220,521,932,472 |
| 2 | Ethereum | $33,343,121,274 |
| 3 | XRP | $16,874,729,951 |
| 4 | Litecoin | $7,519,612,114 |
| 5 | Bitcoin Cash | $7,447,859,790 |
| 6 | EOS | $5,482,125,801 |
| 7 | Binance Coin | $4,671,157,768 |
| 8 | Tether | $3,782,444,135 |
| 9 | Bitcoin SV | $3,702,531,196 |
| 10 | TRON | $2,299,607,197 |
Market capitalisation data accurate as of 10/07/19 from coinmarketcap.com
For more stats on Bitcoin see our guide to Bitcoin statistics.
The biggest rise and falls in cryptocurrency
If there is one thing cryptocurrencies are notorious for, it’s unpredictable price fluctuations. But what have been the biggest rises and falls in the crypto world?
Cryptocurrency boomed in 2017, where seemingly every currency experienced a meteoric rise with currencies such as Ripple increasing in value by 36,000%. However, 2018 has brought cryptocurrencies back down to earth, with many of this years top 10 best performing currencies simply remaining stable or even decreasing in price.
- Two cryptocurrencies made the top 10 best performing coins of 2018 despite experiencing negative growth (Tether and Chainlink).
- 24 hours is a long time in the crypto-world, alt-coin Aeron (ARN) experienced a 337% rise in just 24 hours in January 2018.
- Bitcoin experienced growth of 1,318% in 2017, at its peak worth $19,783 on December 17th, 2017.
- The biggest rise of 2017 was by Ripple, which experienced 36,018% growth over the year.
- Amid fears of government regulation in February 2018, over $100 billion was wiped off the global cryptocurrency market in just 24 hours.
Best performing cryptocurrencies in 2018, ranked by percentage increase.
Best performing cryptocurrencies in 2018, ranked by percentage increase.
| Rank | Name | Current Price ($) | Year to date change (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Smartlands (SLT) | $5.12 | 2589.47% |
| 2 | ODEM (ODEM) | $0.258 | 319.95% |
| 3 | Pundi X (NPXS) | $0.001188 | 19.76% |
| 4 | Huboi Token (HT) | $1.46 | 7.52% |
| 5 | Metaverse ETP (ETP) | $2.79 | 3.72% |
| 6 | DAI (DAI) | $1.00 | 3.36% |
| 7 | USD Coin (USDC) | $1.02 | 0.15% |
| 8 | Compcoin (CMP) | $12.56 | 0.00% |
| 9 | Tether (USDT) | $0.99 | -0.34% |
| 10 | ChainLink (LINK) | $0.50 | -1.22% |
Who is winning from the rise of cryptocurrency?
It is no secret that there is money to be made from cryptocurrency, but with such unpredictable price fluctuations, it’s a risky game. We explored Forbes’ latest rich list to find out who the biggest players in the game are.
- To make the list, you need to have made $350 million from cyptocurrency.
- Chris Larsen, the co-founder of ripple, tops the list with an estimated crypto net worth of $7.5 – $8 billion.
- The average age on the crypto rich list is 42 – compared to 67 on the traditional Forbes’ rich list.
The richest people in cryptocurrency
Mainly populated by Cofounders and CEOs, the Forbes cryptocurrency rich list details those who have made their millions from crypto. Explore the table below to see who made the list.
| Name | Age | Estimated Crypto Net Worth | How they made their money |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Larsen | 57 | $7.5 billion – $8 billion | Cofounder, Ripple |
| Joseph Lubin | 53 | $1 billion – $5 billion | Cofounder, Ethereum. Founder, Consensys |
| Changpeng Zhao | 41 | $1.1 billion – $2 billion | CEO, Binance |
| Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss | 36 | $900 million – $1.1 billion | Cofoudners, Winklevoss Capital |
| Matthew Mellon | 54 | $900 million – $1 billion | Individual Investor |
| Brian Armstrong | 35 | $900 million – $1 billion | CEO, Coinbase |
| Matthew Roszak | 45 | $900 million – $1 billion | Cofounder, Bloq. Founder, Tally Capital |
| Anthony Di Iorio | 43 | $750 million – $1 billion | Cofounder, Ethereum. Founder, Jaxx and Decentral |
| Brock Pierce | 37 | $700 million – $1 billion | Chairman, Bitcoin Foundation. Advisor, Block.one |
| Michael Novogratz | 53 | $700 million – $1 billion | CEO, Galaxy Digital |
| Brendan Blumer | 31 | $600 million – $700 million | CEO, Block.one |
| Dan Larimer | 35 | $600 million – $700 million | Chief Technology Officer, Block.one |
| Valery Vavilov | 38 | $500 million – $700 million | CEO, Bitfury |
| Charles Hoskinson | 30 | $500 million – $600 million | Cofounder, Ethereum, IOHK |
| Brad Garlinghouse | 47 | $400 million – $500 million | CEO, Ripple |
| Barry Silbert | 41 | $400 million – $500 million | CEO, Digital Currency Group |
| Vitalik Buterin | 24 | $400 million – $500 million | Creator of Ethereum |
| Tim Draper | 59 | $350 million – $500 million | Founder, Draper Associates |
| Song Chi-Hyung | 38 | $350 million – $500 million | CEO, Dunamu. Founder, Upbit |
Who are the biggest losers from cryptocurrency?
The value of cryptocurrency, much like any investment, can go up as well as down. We explored who the biggest losers from cryptocurrency are to find out who has lost the most.
- Rapper 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) accepted Bitcoin payments for his album back in 2014, recently claiming that he has forgotten about them and they were now worth millions. However, his record label had actually converted the currency into US dollars immediately, meaning the rapper missed out on the potential meteoric rise of Bitcoin in late 2017.
- A British IT worker accidentally tossed out his hard drive containin 7,500 Bitcoins, which at its peak would have been worth $146 million.
- Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak recently announced he had been scammed out of 7 Bitcoin – worth almost $140,000 at its peak.
- Lily Allen turned down an online-concert for “several hundred thousand Bitcoin” back in 2009. If the offer was just for 100,000 Bitcoin, that would be worth an astounding $1.28 billion (July 2019).
Sources used
- Forbes
- CoinMarketCap
- Cryptovest
- PlayCryptoCards
- Inc
- NME
- Investopedia
For all media enquiries, please contact
Matt Mckenna
UK Communications Manager
T: +44 20 3828 1338
UK Communications Manager
T: +44 20 3828 1338
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