Crypto market total market cap surpasses $2.7 trillion, history moves forward quietly

On the evening of October 20, 2021 (Hong Kong time), Bitcoin prices briefly moved upward. According to OKX platform data, the BTC /USDT trading pair quote reached a high of $66,999, surpassing the previous high of $64,846 set in mid-April this year. Accompanying Bitcoin's price continuing to hit new historical highs, the total market capitalization of the crypto market also unsurprisingly reached a new level, successfully breaking through $2.7 trillion. According to CoinGecko statistics, as of the time of writing, the total crypto market capitalization reached a high of $2.76 trillion, approaching the $3 trillion mark. Just on the 1st of this month, this figure had only recovered to the $2 trillion level from the previous downward trend. In less than a month, the increase exceeded 38%. Looking at the slope of the line graph below, one can intuitively see how rapidly the total crypto market capitalization has grown recently.

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Changes in total crypto market capitalization in recent years, data source: CoinGecko

However, although the total crypto market capitalization has recently reached a new high, judging from the discussion heat in the crypto community, it seems that the enthusiastic scenes seen when the total market capitalization reached $800 billion during the previous bull market peak in 2017-2018, or when it first broke through $2 trillion in the first half of this year, have not appeared. The reasons for this lie, on one hand, in the fact that after years of quiet development in the crypto industry, new paradigms with significant transformative meaning such as DeFi and NFTs have gradually taken root and initially achieved remarkable results. The great progress in practical applications has shifted the market's focus from the virtual to the real. On the other hand, recent news from the US SEC about the successive approval of Bitcoin futures ETFs has greatly mobilized market investor sentiment and subsequent expectations for a Bitcoin spot ETF. Therefore, it is understandable that investors have not given too much attention to this breakthrough in total crypto market capitalization.

However, if we strip away excessive emotional factors in the current market and re-examine the stage of market development, the most reliable information is still the objective data presented on-chain. Therefore, in this article, we will still use various key data as clues to present readers with an overview of the crypto market's development as much as possible.

First, let's look at Bitcoin . At the beginning of this article, we mentioned that Bitcoin's price recently approached $67,000. At the same time, Bitcoin's market capitalization also surged to a historical high of $1.25 trillion, accounting for 46.3% of the total crypto market capitalization, still firmly holding the top position. Bitcoin's value as the market's "anchor" is certainly not only reflected here. Whether it's the price increase or the climb in total market capitalization, the biggest driving force behind it can be attributed to the increase in consensus among market investors. Specifically, at the data level, this is the change in the number of coin-holding addresses.

According to OK Link On-Chain Master data, the total number of Bitcoin on-chain addresses has now exceeded 889 million. By comparison, the current global total population is 7.58 billion. A rough calculation shows that the number of Bitcoin on-chain addresses already accounts for 11.7% of the global total population.

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Changes in Bitcoin on-chain address count, data source: OK Link On-Chain Master

However, considering that zero-asset addresses and abandoned addresses account for a considerable portion of the on-chain address numbers mentioned above, referring to the number of non-zero Bitcoin on-chain addresses is more credible. Similarly, according to OK Link On-Chain Master statistics, as of the time of writing, the number of non-zero Bitcoin on-chain addresses also reached 38.737 million.

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Changes in Bitcoin non-zero on-chain address count, data source: OK Link On-Chain Master

If we compare this data with the global total population, the proportion drops to 0.51%. From this, we can perhaps interpret two pieces of information: first, in the 12 years since Bitcoin's birth, achieving such broad consensus on a global scale truly demonstrates its strong vitality; second, compared with the global population of 7.58 billion, Bitcoin's future development potential cannot be underestimated.

In addition, judging from trading activity in the secondary market, as the overall market has recently warmed up, the number of large-value transactions on the Bitcoin chain has also increased.

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Changes in Bitcoin large-value transaction count, data source: OK Link On-Chain Master

From the chart above, we can see that after entering mid-September, the number of large-value Bitcoin on-chain transactions showed a clear growth trend. The daily maximum transaction count quickly rose from around 100 previously to over 300, with multiple days even exceeding 600 transactions. At the same time, the number of profitable Bitcoin on-chain addresses also set a new record. On October 19, 2021, OK Link On-Chain Master recorded a total of 38.095 million addresses in a profitable state. Compared with the 38.737 million non-zero Bitcoin on-chain addresses mentioned above, this accounts for 98.3%.

Another noteworthy data point is the circulation of Bitcoin pegged assets. According to OK Link On-Chain Master statistics, as of October 20, the total issuance of Bitcoin pegged coins on Ethereum had approached 300,000, with WBTC issuance exceeding 210,000, accounting for 73.45%. HBTC (39,884) and renBTC (17,263) ranked second and third respectively.

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Bitcoin pegged asset circulation, data source: OK Link On-Chain Master

By comparison, as of October 21, the total capacity of the Bitcoin Lightning Network had just surpassed 3,112 BTC , worth approximately $200 million (according to 1ML website statistics). In terms of quantity, Bitcoin pegged on the Ethereum network is nearly 100 times that of the Lightning Network, and such comparison to a large extent proves Bitcoin's application value in DeFi and even broader fields.

Continuing along this topic, let's look at the development of the Ethereum ecosystem. In comparisons involving Ethereum and Bitcoin, a data point we often focused on before is the change in ETH/BTC exchange rate. According to OKX platform data, since the ETH/BTC exchange rate reached this year's high of 0.08239 on May 15, it has been oscillating in the range of 0.055-0.08. Today's exchange rate is maintained around 0.065, still at a relatively high level.

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ETH/BTC exchange rate changes, data source: OKX

Similarly, looking at Ethereum's market capitalization changes, as of October 22, its market capitalization has recovered to $490.9 billion, accounting for 19% of the total crypto market capitalization, successfully surpassing Wall Street giant JPMorgan Chase and ranking 14th in global asset rankings.

Since we're focusing on the Ethereum ecosystem, we naturally need to place emphasis on DeFi. Let's understand them one by one. In last week's article "DeFi Total TVL Hits New High: How to Grasp Investment Opportunities in the DeFi 2.0 Era?" , we noted the news that DeFi total value locked (TVL) across the entire network had refreshed records. So how is DeFi developing on the Ethereum network?

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Ethereum network DeFi smart contract total value locked, data source: OK Link On-Chain Master

From OK Link On-Chain Master statistics, it's not difficult to find that the total value locked in DeFi smart contracts based on the Ethereum network has also recently hit a new high, reaching $135.76 billion, accounting for 84.3% of DeFi total value locked across the entire network ($161.01 billion). Among them, the value of locked assets in DEX exceeded $5.16 billion, with Uniswap ranking first at $2.91 billion, followed by Sushiswap and 1inch in second and third places respectively. The newly rising star — decentralized derivatives trading platform dYdX — temporarily ranked 35th with a TVL of $89.8 million. In the lending sector, scenes remain fiery, with total deposits reaching $68.53 billion, a historical high; total borrowing is approximately $22.81 billion, accounting for 33.9% of deposits, which is in a relatively healthy range. In addition, it's worth mentioning that in the more than a year of DeFi's rapid development, problems that have continuously emerged and urgently need solving — such as low fund utilization, slow trading speeds during peak periods, high transaction fees, and imperfect community governance rules — have seen more solutions recently. As DeFi development continues to deepen, the DeFi 2.0 concept has quietly begun to rise. More and more smart protocols dedicated to connecting the real world, achieving truly meaningful community governance structures, providing higher fund utilization rates, and smoothing or transferring risk are expected to propel DeFi toward a higher stage of development. In this process, NFTs, which shone brilliantly in Q3, are likely to reappear in a role that redefines on-chain value attribution after experiencing this period of quiet, rather than merely remaining in simple "crossover" or GameFi applications.

At this moment when the total crypto market capitalization has broken through $2.7 trillion, we are pleased to see that not only are more funds paying attention to and flowing into the crypto market, but investors both inside and outside the market also hold a more rational and objective attitude toward this emerging market. At the same time, more and more professionals from various industries are bringing revolutionary innovative solutions to the future development of the crypto market and bravely exploring forward through repeated failures.

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