Many investors and traders believe that if there is one winner in the cryptocurrency race, it will be Bitcoin. One of the main reasons for that belief is that it has maintained the largest market capitalization.
The market cap, at least for cryptos, is the total number of coins times the current price. However, the key is “total number of coins”. Most sites reference the market cap based on Circulating Supply (the “float” in stock market terms), and in that case, Bitcoin would be at the top.
However, if you base it on the Supply Limit, which is the total number of coins possible, Ripple would be at the top with a market cap of $328 billion, based on the prices displayed at the time this article is written. Bitcoin would be $321 billion.
See the chart below for more detail:
| Crypto Market Caps | |||
| Market Caps based on Supply Limits as Opposed to Circulating Limits | |||
| Coin | Supply Limit | Price | Market Cap |
| Ripple | 100,000,000,000 | $3.28 | $328,000,000,000 |
| Bitcoin | 21,000,000 | $15,289 | $321,069,000,000 |
| Ethereum* | 103,862,556 | $962 | $99,915,778,872 |
| Stellar Lumen | 103,570,548,975 | $0.86 | $89,535,911,024 |
| Bitcoin Cash | 21,000,000 | $2,595 | $54,494,580,000 |
| Cardano | 45,000,000,000 | $1.04 | $46,800,000,000 |
| Litecoin | 84,000,000 | $244.16 | $20,509,440,000 |
| *Estimated supply limit. No set block limit. | |||
| Source: Based on prices at coinmarketcap.com on 1/3/17 at 5:10 pm PT | |||