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Elon Musk Becomes Richest Person Alive, as Bitcoin Market Cap Trails Tesla by $40M
Propelling innovation and becoming first in their domains, Bitcoin and Tesla have marked the new era of tech and finance.
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As of earlier today, Elon Musk passed Jeff Bezos to become the richest person in the world. While BTC relentlessly inches closer to $40k, Bitcoin’s market price is about to overtake one of the biggest stock performers of 2020. If forecasts on Tesla’s price correction pan out, this may happen sooner rather than later.
Top Bitcoin Investor’s Perspective
Many are under the impression that the king of cryptocurrency – Bitcoin – far outpaces the returns of stocks. While this is true for most cases, there are some exceptions. Tesla is on that short list, by gaining 808% year-to-date (YTD) returns in 2020.
In the meantime, Bitcoin already outperformed both Visa and MasterCard, therefore, becoming the world’s largest financial service. Let us recall possibly the best description of Bitcoin ever made, courtesy of Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy:
“Bitcoin is a bank in cyberspace, run by incorruptible software, offering a global, affordable, simple, & secure savings account to billions of people that don’t have the option or desire to run their own hedge fund.”
Saylor certainly followed his own sentiment, by driving $650 million worth of MicroStrategy funds into Bitcoin. If you have any doubt about his enthusiasm, his more poetic take on the revolutionary internet money should convince you:
“Bitcoin is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy.”
This is the kind of enthusiasm drawing from Bitcoin’s original Satoshi vision as a usurper of the fiat money establishment. Thanks in large part to Saylor’s MicroStrategy institutional investment, drawing others into the fold, Bitcoin is coming close to overtaking the darling of tech-savvy and eco-friendly first adopters – Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA).
Both Bitcoin and Tesla Have Something in Common
One could make the case that Tesla is wrongly valued as a tech-stock instead of a car-stock all day long. After all, General Motors’ EV outperformed Tesla’s self-driving capability. However, Tesla was the first EV company to destroy the psychological barrier of people’s EV perception as weird contraptions that have no business being in someone’s garage. In fact, Tesla cars have become status symbols.
Likewise, Bitcoin is the first among thousands of cryptocurrencies. Some may boast the superior transaction speed of Litecoin (LTC), while others may point to Monero (XMR)’s unparalleled privacy. All of that may be true, but once a certain threshold of entrenchment is reached, being first becomes the most important feature of them all.
In light of this, Bitcoin is well underway to surpass even Tesla’s market cap. At the time of writing, it fluctuates around $731 billion. If we go by the Stock/Flow model, Bitcoin is just about to surpass Tesla’s ~$770 billion market cap, taking the EV company’s 7th rank on the world’s top assets list.
To put things into perspective, Bitcoin has thus far overtaken the following corporate giants’ market caps:
- MasterCard – $347,6 billion
- Visa – $472,7 billion
- Berkshire Hathaway B – $547.3 billion. Founded by Warren Buffet, who famously framed Bitcoin in 2018 as “probably rat poison squared”.
- Alibaba – $597,5 billion
- Tencent – $705,7 billion
Of course, the first place is still securely held by Apple with a $2,201,9 billion market cap, ahead of Saudi Aramco by ~$346 billion.
What is your favorite app for tracking Bitcoin’s price moves? Let us know in the comments below.
Tim Fries
Tim Fries is the cofounder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate on the investment team at RW Baird's US Private Equity division, and is also the co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.
