Earlier this morning the entire cryptocurrency market cap eclipsed the $60 billion mark for the first time ever.

That might sound like a large number but keep in mind that Facebook by itself currently sports a $430 billion dollar market cap. Apple sits almost double that with a market cap that is currently around $800 billion. 

Also, keep in mind that those are just specific companies, with crypto we are talking about an entire sector here. 

So, while $60 billion might sound like a large number on first glance, there is still lots of room to grow here...

The most recent surge in cyrptocurrencies has been lead by Ripple. 

Ripple seeks to lower costs in business cross-border payments. Financial companies have shown particular interest in it's technology. 

If paypal isn't worried yet, it should be. If not by Ripple, there are several possible competitors coming to eat it's lunch. 

In fact it makes a lot of sense for Paypal to purchase it's recent partner Coinbase as soon as possible, but that is a topic for another day.  

Even more surprising with the recent surge in crypto land is the fact that big daddy Bitcoin has now fallen to less than 50% of the entire crypto space market cap for the first time ever just a couple days ago. 

You can read more about it here:

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@jrcornel/bitcoin-now-accounts-for-less-than-half-the-market-cap-of-all-cryptocurrencies

Who is doing all this buying?

Again we can see very clearly where much of the cyrptocurrency buying is coming from:

This was the breakdown of Bitcoin transacted in fiat from a couple days ago.

As we can see JPY again is leading the charge, but what has been surprising is that the USD has almost fallen to third place with a sudden surge in Chinese buying. 

If we didn't already know, this only confirms even more that the massive demand we are currently seeing in the crypto space is coming mainly from Asia. 

There doesn't seem to be any signs of it slowing either. 

What's next?

A lot of people have been wondering that very thing. I hear the word "bubble" being thrown around quite a bit as well.

My personal opinion is that things are getting pretty heated in the space. That doesn't mean that it can't keep going up, but it might mean that we are due for a short term correction pretty soon.

However, I still feel like there is a massive trend change driving this thing and that trend change is still in it's beginning stages in my opinion. Which, if that is the case, means that the very best in the cryptocurrency space (cough cough steem) could still go a lot higher...

Take that for what it's worth and make sure you stick to your investment plans.

Stay safe out there my friends!

Sources:

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FB?p=FB

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-20/bitcoin-soars-above-2000-first-time-ever#comments

Image Sources:

https://bitcoinio.com/bitcoin-breaks-all-time-highs-is-2000-possible/

Follow me: @jrcornel