Despite all the financial media coverage of bitcoin and other lesser-known digital currencies, cryptos pretty much remain a mystery to the uninitiated.
That’s where social trading platform eToro and the Visual Capital blog come in. The two got together to create a massive graphic aimed at lifting the veil on some of the more prominent players in the game.
“Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’re probably aware that we’re in the middle of a cryptocurrency explosion,” Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins wrote in a blog post. “And while people like Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan JPM, -0.20% and famed value investor Howard Marks have been extremely critical of cryptocurrencies as of late, many other investors are continuing to ride the wave.”
Dimon earlier this week slammed bitcoin BTCUSD, -8.32% as “a fraud” and a bubble. “It’s worse than tulip bulbs and won’t end well,” he said.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Either way, it’s a good idea to get acquainted with what exactly is going on here.
As you can see, the visual focuses on six cryptos: bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum classic, Litecoin, Ripple, and Dash.
Bitcoin, at the time this chart was created, was the clear leader in market cap at $76.1 billion. It’s still at the top of the heap, but there has been lots of selling lately, which has brought its market cap down below $60 billion.
At last check, the value of a single bitcoin on Thursday was off by 6.5% at $3,620.70, compared with $5,000 or so in early September. Ether tokens, the second-most popular digital currency, were down 9% on the day at $249.73.
