Topic: How world currencies compare to Bitcoin in terms of "market capitalization" (Read 4306 times)

Hopefully we will see more and more red countries in the list as you update it

It does, indeed. We're all waiting for it.

Deflate as in gain value, the opposite of inflation.   To the point where a single satoshi is worth a decent amount.  Then there would be enough to go around.   Does that make sense?

On the internet.
No idea, you tell me.
Because it says CIA. (No, seriously, I tried other sources and the CIA's data just seemed more reliable.)
Maybe I should.
Is it me or are you being aggressive?

So where is bitcoin's country? where are North Korea and Iran? why CIA as reference? because it says CIA? you should check the data provided by the world bank. now we all know bitcoin knows no borders and could reach even more levels of credibility and value or are you trying to prove a point I'm not seeing it.

I think it's more relevant when compared to currencies that are bigger than it. I don't care about weak currencies actually. The green is what matters to me. It gives an idea of the room left for Bitoin to grow. I also wanted the detailed data, which the original map is very elusive about, and that's why I started all these calculations after seeing it. Actually I now think that the chart in #4 is more relevant, firstly because it uses the same data as the map (which comes from the CIA website, which seems more reliable than my original source, tradingeconomics) and secondly because it shows the difference in the shape of a percentage compared to Bitcoin.
I'm thinking about dumping OP all in all and replacing it with this second chart. What say you, people?

BTW, what do you mean by "it has to deflate", The Pharmacist?
It is relevant in the sense that governments are managed in a similar fashion as companies are, and it's interesting to notice how companies, which basically are plutocratic dictatures, are proving more efficient than democraties. Several years ago, newspapers were talking about how Google could technically buy Greece. Of course it didn't happen, but it opened my eyes to the idea that despite the fact that most of us live in democratic countries, we work for dictatorial companies, and they sometimes fare better than said democraties.

xhomerx10, please don't. You have been the most helpful person here until now. I was asking for other people's insight about the weak market cap that I got for the RUB, now it's just that I've gotten it, partly thanks to you, and that I'm afraid that if I don't remove the information from the first post the discussion will only revolve about it although the issue has already been solved. But actually you're right: I should update the chart with the Russian central bank's data instead. I'll do it now.

I do find this mildly interesting, but you could also list the countries that have a smaller market cap than the Coca-Cola company, and there would be a lot more red.  I'm not sure it's really relevant to anything.  Now of course if bitcoin is to become a worldwide currency, it has to deflate.  A lot.  We're all waiting for that, but I'm just not sure it's going to happen.  Do any of you?

That's actually pretty impressive to be honest, I had a feeling Bitcoin was bigger than some countries' currencies, however I didn't think it was bigger than 60% of the currencies throughout the world. Especially when you consider that Bitcoin has a market cap of $14B.

Goes to show how a lot of the world is poorer than you think.

 It's your post so you can remove what you like but I think 25% difference isn't so bad considering that the CIA had estimated the data for the years 2015 and 2016 in their statistics and I got the data directly from the Russian central bank's website (kudos to Perestroica and Glastnost) so I tend to think that is more accurate.  I'm not sure why the CIA doesn't trust Russian central bank's own data... maybe the CIA is just lazy or underfunded (or both!).

 Sorry.  That'll be my last post on the subject of Russian money supply.

Alright. I deleted Russia from the first post. As I warned in my first post and as we've since confirmed, the data on tradingeconomics was most likely flawed and I feel like I'm just getting a glimpse of what will happen when the hordes of signature posters will comment here without reading the whole post and the other comments. It was either that or I changed the name of the topic into "Is there a mistake in the data on tradingeconomics regarding the RUB's M1?" The answer is probably yes, so I'll cut it short by removing that line from the chart.
According to the CIA, the total M1 money supply of the RUB is $199,700,000,000 and that seems much more accurate at first glance (also it is around 1346% of Bitcoin's market cap). It's either that or xhomerx10: $152 billion (and that's already a 25% difference, which is relatively huge). If we assume that tradingeconomics mispelled the word billion for million, their M1 would be $281 billion. Again that's about 40% difference with the CIA's data and more or less 90% difference with xhomerx10's. Seems like accurately calculating a currency's money supply is a difficult exercise, given these margins.

 I believe it is cash plus the banks' reserve requirements and they refer to this as Monetary Base (or MB).  Their M2 is that amount plus deposits.

9 trillion rubles is about $150 billion, much less that I expected, but still 10 times that of Bitcoin.

If they din't use M1, what do they use? Do you mean that they only show the fractionally reserved money supply?

I'm not sure that Russia uses M1 (the UK doesn't) so those values you got from trading economics website were probably flawed.  Here from the mouth of the bear is the narrow money supply in Russia:





 source: https://www.cbr.ru/Eng/statistics/?PrtId=indcalendar

The market cap of the Russian Ruble is 1,000 times more than what he had posted here. As per the latest exchange rates, the market cap is around 210 billion USD (and not 281 million USD).

Any currency's M1 is the total amount of "physical money — both paper and coin — as well as checking accounts, demand deposits and negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) accounts" (source : http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/m1.asp). Investopedia goes on by saying: "The most liquid portions of the money supply are measured by M1 because it contains currency and assets that can be converted to cash quickly". That's close enough to the total number of units of that currency in circulation as well as to the situation with Bitcoin.

I multiplied that value by "the average value of this currency on all exchanges", as you said, to get the numbers here.
Indeed it's not exactly the same as what we call the market cap for Bitcoin, but it stills seems close enough IMO.

The fiat currencies market capitalization should not be viewed like we view bitcoins market capitalization or the other way around. The reason why we must not compare is due to bitcoins volatility. Bitcoins market capitalization is based on the average value of bitcoin on all exchangers and multiplied it by the total number of circulation. So if you look at your description of M1 compared to bitcoins market capitalization then you will notice that they are not the same.

Yeah I was talking about the possibility of this very one to be wrong in my OP. In the end I think the data that I based my math on ( from http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m1) probably was wrong about Russia.
The second chart, with the percentages, however, uses different data and there, Russia seems to be more at the right place.
I'm trying to see what kind of room Bitcoin still has for improvement and I don't reckon comparing bitcoin with USD or any other fiat currency is like comparing apples with tomatoes. A currency is a currency. It makes no sense to make a difference like you do just based on the fact that some are inflating and others deflating.

You might be right as I have read many times market capitalization are just numbers and there will be no significant importance for it other than giving a feel of how big one commodity would be, among investors.

I guess a typical bitcoin trader will not bother about market capitalization of bitcoin, but do take care of impacting news and events for their analysis.

This one stood out to me as 'possibly' being wrong! It seems like you might be missing a few zeros.

It is pretty cool that bitcoin is more valuable than the currencies of some 3rd world countries, but I would like to see the same comparison with tech companies.
There are some pretty average American Tech companies with multi Billion dollar values.

I wouldn't be too surprised if Snapchat goes for more than the value of every Bitcoin in the world! There is still some room for expansion!

Comparing bitcoin with USD or any other fiat currency is like comparing apples with tomatoes.
Comparing btc worldwide adoption vs. US adoption is also useless.
I don`t know what this guy is trying to proove with his research and all this info?  

Monetary inflation and deflation have nothing to do with the calculation of a currency's market cap.
Besides, if they did, it would make no difference to include checking accounts or not in the math, as the value of cash is obviously directly linked to this of the currency anyway.
For both these reasons I don't think your post makes any sense. If you still think it does we can talk about it, but as of now I think that you misunderstood something about the definition of what market cap is.

Also I'm not using M0 because cash being only a small portion of the money supply it's just not representative of it.

The problem with comparing the Bitcoin supply to a M1 supply is that M1 includes money created through fractional-reserve banking and the Bitcoin supply does not. A better comparison might be with M0/MB, but it depends on what you are trying to show.

Haha I wish I had a moustache like that, but I found this picture on Google. It isn't really me

Well, I know there are 16 million bitcoin in existence but if you call the number of bitcoin in existence 100%, then you've just done what I thought would be cooler but I will have to defer to you and your uber-cool moustache wrt what is cooler

Not sure of it. It wouldn't mean anything. The maket cap of the USD in terms of Bitcoin is BTC3,605,182,927. That's more than 3 billion, which is an absurdity because there aren't that many bitcoins.

Now that I have the data I can do it for the whole chart in a few seconds, though, if you want me to.

What would be more interesting is to compare them in terms of percentage related to Bitcoin's market cap:
   EUROPEAN UNION   48306.56%   
   CHINA   45859.21%   
   JAPAN   42569.10%   
   UNITED STATES   22322.82%   
   GERMANY   13814.40%   
   FRANCE   7712.87%   
   ITALY   7207.22%   
   SPAIN   5577.67%   
   KOREA, SOUTH   4944.60%   
   CANADA   4284.55%   
   SWITZERLAND   3404.04%   
   TAIWAN   3221.34%   
   NETHERLANDS   2724.45%   
   INDIA   2601.74%   
   SAUDI ARABIA   1992.27%   
   SWEDEN   1905.29%   
   HONG KONG   1824.39%   
   AUSTRALIA   1653.82%   
   LUXEMBOURG   1568.19%   
   VENEZUELA   1456.95%   
   NORWAY   1389.53%   
   AUSTRIA   1369.30%   
   RUSSIA   1346.38%   
   BELGIUM   1301.21%   
   MEXICO   1296.49%   
   POLAND   1258.06%   
   DENMARK   998.49%   
   IRELAND   972.87%   
   CZECHIA   929.72%   
   FINLAND   877.14%   
   UNITED ARAB EMIRATES   872.42%   
   TURKEY   805.00%   
   SINGAPORE   776.01%   
   BRAZIL   721.40%   
   PAKISTAN   675.55%   
   SOUTH AFRICA   670.76%   
   UNITED KINGDOM   646.42%   
   ALGERIA   616.29%   
   MALAYSIA   615.41%   
   PORTUGAL   590.60%   
   INDONESIA   580.49%   
   GREECE   577.66%   
   MOROCCO   512.80%   
   VIETNAM   505.25%   
   ISRAEL   492.50%   
   PHILIPPINES   445.18%   
   EGYPT   377.28%   
   IRAQ   367.64%   
   ARGENTINA   365.42%   
   THAILAND   339.53%   
   HUNGARY   324.97%   
   LIBYA   314.85%   
   CHILE   308.18%   
   SLOVAKIA   286.06%   
   IRAN   271.23%   
   COLOMBIA   258.15%   
   NEW ZEALAND   235.90%   
   QATAR   232.26%   
   NIGERIA   225.93%   
   PERU   220.60%   
   KUWAIT   208.87%   
   ROMANIA   206.78%   
   BANGLADESH   170.44%   
   ANGOLA   165.65%   
   LITHUANIA   144.14%   
   BULGARIA   137.40%   
   CUBA   134.50%   
   UKRAINE   133.56%   
   BURMA   123.85%   
   SLOVENIA   109.09%   
   BITCOIN   100.00%   
   JORDAN   98.97%   
   ETHIOPIA   97.29%   
   OMAN   96.01%   
   MALTA   95.74%   
   ESTONIA   86.63%   
   TUNISIA   81.98%   
   LATVIA   78.61%   
   KENYA   74.63%   
   GUATEMALA   73.83%   
   CROATIA   73.15%   
   KAZAKHSTAN   71.87%   
   ECUADOR   70.12%   
   SUDAN   65.47%   
   BOLIVIA   64.53%   
   COTE D'IVOIRE   63.48%   
   BAHRAIN   60.48%   
   PANAMA   59.63%   
   UZBEKISTAN   50.70%   
   MACAU   46.92%   
   TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO   45.88%   
   AFGHANISTAN   44.79%   
   DOMINICAN REPUBLIC   44.07%   
   LEBANON   43.59%   
   COSTA RICA   40.09%   
   GHANA   39.87%   
   SRI LANKA   37.22%   
   PAPUA NEW GUINEA   35.61%   
   SERBIA   35.13%   
   NEPAL   35.07%   
   BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA   33.76%   
   TANZANIA   33.42%   
   SENEGAL   32.09%   
   PARAGUAY   29.60%   
   AZERBAIJAN   28.28%   
   URUGUAY   27.78%   
   CYPRUS   26.80%   
   CAMEROON   26.79%   
   MOZAMBIQUE   26.71%   
   JAMAICA   24.05%   
   BRUNEI   23.37%   
   EL SALVADOR   22.77%   
   BERMUDA   22.75%   
   ICELAND   22.43%   
   YEMEN   22.32%   
   CONGO, REPUBLIC OF THE   22.07%   
   SYRIA   20.34%   
   ALBANIA   20.29%   
   MALI   18.57%   
   MAURITIUS   18.49%   
   ERITREA   18.26%   
   HONDURAS   16.92%   
   NAMIBIA   16.90%   
   BURKINA FASO   15.83%   
   GABON   15.60%   
   BELARUS   15.05%   
   BENIN   14.93%   
   GEORGIA   14.60%   
   ZIMBABWE   14.36%   
   FIJI   14.04%   
   BAHAMAS, THE   13.90%   
   UGANDA   13.79%   
   MACEDONIA   12.80%   
   BARBADOS   12.73%   
   SOUTH SUDAN   12.63%   
   CAMBODIA   12.03%   
   CHAD   11.74%   
   GUINEA   11.47%   
   NIGER   10.47%   
   MADAGASCAR   10.30%   
   EQUATORIAL GUINEA   9.74%   
   BOTSWANA   9.20%   
   ZAMBIA   8.95%   
   TURKMENISTAN   8.94%   
   TOGO   8.87%   
   NICARAGUA   8.28%   
   CONGO, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE   8.17%   
   DJIBOUTI   8.14%   
   KYRGYZSTAN   7.95%   
   ARMENIA   7.94%   
   LAOS   7.83%   
   ARUBA   7.76%   
   MOLDOVA   7.38%   
   HAITI   6.66%   
   RWANDA   6.45%   
   MONGOLIA   6.30%   
   SURINAME   5.95%   
   BELIZE   5.16%   
   MONTENEGRO   5.05%   
   BHUTAN   4.79%   
   GUYANA   4.57%   
   TAJIKISTAN   4.40%   
   MALDIVES   4.20%   
   CABO VERDE   3.89%   
   MALAWI   3.71%   
   SEYCHELLES   3.68%   
   GUINEA-BISSAU   3.62%   
   LIBERIA   3.08%   
   TIMOR-LESTE   3.08%   
   SOLOMON ISLANDS   3.00%   
   SIERRA LEONE   2.99%   
   CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC   2.65%   
   VANUATU   2.53%   
   BURUNDI   2.46%   
   LESOTHO   2.31%   
   CAYMAN ISLANDS   2.25%   
   WEST BANK   2.14%   
   SAINT LUCIA   1.94%   
   ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA   1.86%   
   SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS   1.69%   
   GAMBIA, THE   1.60%   
   SWAZILAND   1.60%   
   GRENADA   1.41%   
   COMOROS   1.36%   
   MICRONESIA, FEDERATED STATES OF   1.32%   
   SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES   1.13%   
   SAMOA   0.87%   
   TONGA   0.78%   
   DOMINICA   0.77%   
   SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE   0.48%   
   COOK ISLANDS   0.26%   
   ANGUILLA   0.19%   
   MONTSERRAT   0.13%   
   

This tells us that the market cap of the EUR is 480 times higher than this of Bitcoin, and the USD 220 times.

It would have been cooler had you expressed the market cap of the countries in terms of Bitcoin.

Edit:  I meant to also say that this is quite interesting and to thank you for all the effort.

Apparently this isn't getting a lot of people's interest  

Well I found that the CIA had already done the job for me before I even started (that's the data on which the picture in OP is based ): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2214rank.html#rs
In their chart, Bitcoin would be located just above Jordan (71) and below Slovenia (70).

Most of their results are similar to mine, except for Russia, which is ranked 23rd according to them (that is way above Bitcoin, as one could have expected). I still can't explain why it lags behind so much according to my calculation   (though I suppose it probably comes from a mistake on the part of http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m1, and the CIA is the one with the right data, that would make the most sense).

First off: what I'm calling "market capitalization" here is actually the M1 money supply, which is a little different but still close enough, I think.

If you don't know what M1 money supply is, investopedia will explain it better than me:
I should add that M1 and M2 are the most common standards when it comes to calculating a country's money supply. Here I chose to use M1. If I had used M2, all the numbers would have come out at least a little higher, and the countries that find themselves at a tie with Bitcoin but are just a little lower (and thus in the red) would likely have been green.

I got the idea of doing these calculations because I recently stumbled upon this map, which I found interesting, and I wanted to know the details of how the different market caps compared to Bitcoin's:


Notes:
- The red color means that this country's currency's market cap is lower compared to this of Bitcoin. The green color means that it is higher.
- All amounts are in USD.
- Normally there shouldn't be any mistake but if you find any, I invite you to point it to me.
- I won't give the detail of the calculations here, because it wouldn't be readable on the forums, but if you feel like checking any detail, you can have a look at the data on http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m1 and divide it by the USD exchange rate (just make sure to check if the original data is in thousands, million or billion of the original currency: it matters).
- Of course it goes without saying that this data is true as of today, but without being updated, it will divorce more and more from reality as time passes (and I don't intend to update it without proper tools, which I'm lacking at the moment, sorry  ): creating this chart already took me a few hours of my time.

   Albania   3,197,063,844   
   Angola   23,176,824,000   
   Argentina   53,363,929,500   
   Armenia   1,215,818,100   
   Australia   254,668,400,000   
   Austria   211,297,180,000   
   Azerbaijan   4,256,511,000   
   Bahamas   2,298,000,000   
   Bahrain   9,253,800,000   
   Bangladesh   25,704,666,000   
   Belarus   2,768,776,400   
   Belgium   199,555,000,000   
   Belize   1,461,030,000   
   Bhutan   679,479,000   
   Bolivia   8,161,005,440   
   Bosnia and Herzegovina   5,044,583,500   
   Botswana   1,542,723,300   
   Brazil   110,825,644,800   
   Brunei   3,171,000,000   
   Bulgaria   22,451,385,000   
   Burundi   375,830,472   
   Canada   674,471,120,000   
   Cape Verde   591,940,560   
   Chile   44,272,605,000   
   China   7,299,000,000,000   
   Colombia   34,625,062,800   
   Congo   1,264,109,020   
   Croatia   11,043,284,000   
   Cyprus   4,739,030   
   Czech Republic   129,446,456,000   
   Denmark   156,736,160,000   
   Djibouti   583,900,800   
   Ecuador   22,639,190,000   
   Egypt   32,937,115,000   
   El Salvador   3,253,400,000   
   Estonia   11,981,860,000   
   Euro Area   7,692,436,510,000   
   Finland   123,030,740,000   
   France   1,126,275,580,000   
   Georgia   1,896,050,722   
   Germany   2,046,375,000,000   
   Greece   116,899,640,000   
   Guatemala   10,337,288,000   
   Hong Kong   287,816,100,000   
   Hungary   50,284,980,000   
   Iceland   4,124,216,000   
   India   318,319,500,000   
   Indonesia   88,705,485,000   
   Iraq   59,571,120,000   
   Ireland   154,587,180,000   
   Israel   84,828,120,000   
   Italy   1,081,634,110,000   
   Japan   6,066,107,520,000   
   Jordan   14,489,442,000   
   Kazakhstan   14,269,163,600   
   Kenya   12,212,160,000   
   Kuwait   31,157,048,000   
   Kyrgyzstan   1,266,666,800   
   Latvia   10,869,595,000   
   Lebanon   6,509,448,000   
   Lesotho   360,431,800   
   Lithuania   15,053,830,000   
   Luxembourg   237,540,000,000   
   Macau   8,823,792,900   
   Macedonia   1,716,869,100   
   Malaysia   84,698,180,800   
   Malta   13,764,587,000   
   Mexico   175,363,079,136   
   Moldova   1,404,560,000   
   Mongolia   856,645,472   
   Morocco   73,019,200,000   
   Namibia   2,926,537,200   
   Netherlands   484,705,720,000   
   New Caledonia   2,994,948,000   
   New Zealand   35,730,580,000   
   Nicaragua   1,874,876,960   
   Nigeria   32,075,573,408   
   Norway   222,315,840,000   
   Oman   13,156,260,000   
   Pakistan   101,140,087,500   
   Peru   22,787,100,000   
   Philippines   58,831,076,600   
   Poland   203,827,527,500   
   Portugal   110,352,310,000   
   Qatar   33,804,270,000   
   Romania   43,203,240,000   
   Russia    153,936,646,226 (data source: https://www.cbr.ru/Eng/hd_base/?PrtId=mb_nd_month)      
   Rwanda   919,920,000   
   Sao Tome And Principe   57,298,283   
   Saudi Arabia   309,664,080,000   
   Serbia   5,227,269,200   
   Seychelles   317,614,660   
   Sierra Leone   364,238,700   
   Singapore   120,749,230,000   
   Slovakia   45,475,000,000   
   Slovenia   16,562,530,000   
   South Africa   119,149,398,000   
   South Korea   658,838,060,000   
   Spain   842,815,460,000   
   Sri Lanka   4,874,920,000   
   Sudan   10,324,650,000   
   Swaziland   367,040,000   
   Sweden   273,167,620,000   
   Switzerland   593,364,000,000   
   Taiwan   202,921,600,000   
   Tajikistan   1,083,284   
   Thailand   49,879,200,000   
   Tunisia   11,264,880   
   Turkey   99,408,052,978   
   Ukraine   18,203,260,000   
   United Arab Emirates   127,980,000,000   
   United Kingdom   2,017,418,750,000   
   United States   3,320,700,000,000   
   Uruguay   4,638,025,000   
   Venezuela   907,167,934,000   
   Vietnam   64,069,016,000   
   Zimbabwe   3,260,365,000   

Data sources:
https://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m1
https://www.cbr.ru/Eng/hd_base/?PrtId=mb_nd_month
Google exchange rates as of today.