BTC hits $22K, ETH 'Giga mooning'

Bye-bye, Monday blues, hello bullish news — the total crypto market capitalization has retaken the $1 trillion level. The crypto market cap is now almost as valuable as all the silver on the planet.

A price pump for Bitcoin (BTC) brought the world’s most decentralized cryptocurrency into the $22,500 range, while Ethereum (ETH) enjoyed a double-digit “Giga pump” to kiss the $1,500 mark. Their combined efforts have culminated in a 4.8% pump to the entire crypto market, lifting it to a recent high of $1.02 trillion.

The crypto market cap is back over the 1 trillion mark!
Is it too early to start getting bullish?
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) July 18, 2022

Bitcoin reclaimed the meme-worthy target of $420 billion in market cap, while Ethereum is sitting pretty at a total market cap of $180 billion, having added more than $20 billion in the past 24 hours. As per the below graph, the last time that the crypto market crossed the $1 trillion level was on June 13.

Total crypto market cap for the past 3 months according to coinmarketcap.com/charts

A reminder on market capitalizations: In the case of Bitcoin and most mined cryptocurrencies, the “market cap” refers to the total value of all mined coins. For Bitcoin, it’s simple: multiply the total number of Bitcoin mined since January 3rd, 2009, (a little over 19,096,775) by the current price per Bitcoin, circa $22,000.i

The trillion dollar mark was welcome news to crypto advocates on Twitter. They were quick to celebrate the momentous milestone, while some, such as DonAlt, queried whether the new price levels could indicate a bullish reversal:

So now that BTC is up and ETH is giga mooning
At what price level would a new bull market be confirmed for you guys
— DonAlt (@CryptoDonAlt) July 18, 2022

Indeed, the beaten-down market is eager to bask in bullish news, given that the fear and greed index has sat at “extreme fear” or “fear” for months on end.

Caution, fear and greed index still sits in extreme fear. Source: alternative.me

Nonetheless, before reaching for the champagne, spare a thought for the previous crypto market cap all-time high. It tipped the $3 trillion mark in quarter four of 2021, meaning $2 trillion has been lost.

The crypto market cap reached the same value as Apple’s stock in April 2021 before surpassing $3 trillion. However, Apple is currently valued at $2.4 trillion, while crypto sits at $1 trillion. Consequently, there are some ways to go for crypto to match one of the world’s biggest, and certainly among the most well-known, companies.