A 48% rise in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) since the start of the year has pushed BTC’s market capitalization past that of payment processing giant Visa once again.
With the price of BTC currently at $24,365, its market capitalization of $470.16 billion is now marginally above that of Visa, which has a market capitalization of $469.87 billion. according to CoinMarketCap.
This is the third time BTC has “flipped” Visa’s market cap, according to the market capitalization of companies.
The first time came in late December 2020, when BTC also hit $25,000 for the first time. This was accomplished during a price surge that saw BTC rise from $10,200 in September 2020 to $63,170 seven months later in April 2021.
Visa retook the lead between June and October 2022, and then BTC surpassed Visa for a brief moment on Oct. 1 before the payments company reclaimed the lead again.
This advantage was magnified when the crash of cryptocurrency exchange FTX wiped out more than $100 billion worth of BTC in four days between November 6-10, 2022.
However, BTC has since made a full recovery and amassed an additional $65 billion on top of its Nov. 6 market cap of $408 billion to outpace the payment processing giant.
RIP: #Bitcoin Market cap is now worth more than Visa ‼️#BTC #Crypto #cryptonews #cryptocurrency #cryptomarket pic.twitter.com/rZrLufkwLj
— Ajay (All Hindi) (@EverythingAjay) February 19, 2023
It is worth noting that given the small difference in market capitalization between BTC and Visa, the two are currently trading on the hourly basis.
Related: What is the Lightning Network in Bitcoin and how does it work?
As for BTC’s impressive start to 2023, its third Visa “change” came after 14 consecutive days of price increases between January 4-17.
BTC is also well ahead of the second largest payment processing network, Mastercard, which currently has a market capitalization of $345.24 billion. according to Google Finance.
He #Bitcoin Strategy is the winning strategy. pic.twitter.com/AR9R1Dxj5G
—Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) February 17, 2023
However, BTC is still 63% below its all-time high of $69,044, which it reached on November 10, 2021.
