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Cryptocurrency Market Overtakes Apple — The World's Most Valuable Company — In Market Capitalization.

The cryptocurrency industry has now surpassed the value of the world's most successful corporation.

On Wednesday morning, the total value of all cryptocurrencies surpassed the market capitalization of Apple, owing to record-breaking price rallies for bitcoin, ethereum (ether), and dogecoin.

Over the last 24 hours, all three cryptocurrencies have hit new all-time highs, with one bitcoin now worth over $64,000, one ethereum worth $2,350, and one dogecoin worth $0.13 at the time of publishing.

The cumulative gains propelled the cryptocurrency market past $2.2 trillion, putting it $10 billion ahead of Apple in terms of market capitalization.

Bitcoin alone is now worth more than $1.2 trillion, putting it ahead of Facebook and Tesla, with a price increase of over 1,000% since April of last year.

Because of its recent gains, Bitcoin is now worth more than the combined market capitalizations of payment giants Mastercard, PayPal, and Visa.

It is still a long way from gold's total value, but it is catching up rapidly on silver.

The cryptocurrency market reaches a watershed moment on the day Coinbase goes public on the Nasdaq stock exchange, making it the first corporation specialising in cryptocurrencies to do so (IPO).

The launch of one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges on the stock market has been dubbed a "coming-of-age" moment for the industry, with some forecasting valuations in the $100 billion range.

Asen Kostadinov, a strategy manager at London cryptocurrency custody provider Copper, told The Independent, "The Coinbase IPO could well act as a gateway drug to crypto."

“Coinbase is a reputable, well-regulated, and profitable blue-chip technology business. New types of investors can access the crypto space as a result of the IPO. After the last quarter of 2020, institutional acceptance of crypto has clearly reached a significant inflection point, demonstrating the space's maturity and credibility.”