Before crypto, I couldn't comprehend the magnitude of large numbers.
In my mid-20s: $1.8B market cap token? Is that a lot?"
Compared to what?
My anchor numbers I 'understood' were $5 meal, $300 rent, $1 ice cream.
$1M felt like infinite wealth. $100M+? Just "crazy lots of money."
And $500m? A billion? 10 billion?
A WHOLE TRILLION?
Our brains suck at magnitudes beyond lived experience.
I had no scale to anchor it.
The picture below visualizes the magnitude.
Now, the MC of $DOGE is $36B. What does this number mean to you?
In comparison, the GDP of Iceland is $31B. El Salvador - $34B.
GDP measures annual output, market cap is speculative value. Imperfect comparison, but shocking for scale.
Ralph Lauren clothing company MC is $18B, and Ford is $45b, 'just' $9B more than $DOGE.
Putting a meme coin beside Ford feels... absurd?
Well, #BTC market cap $2.3 trillion is the same size of GDP as Italy, and larger than Canada, Brazil, or Russia.
Bitcoin overtook Alphabet (Google), Meta, and Silver!
Now, I see everything through crypto MC:
Norway's $2T wealth fund ~= Bitcoin's market cap. Is BTC overvalued, or is Norway just insanely rich?
UK raised £12.1B in CGT?
That's the market cap of $HYPE - a token with just a few tens of thousands of holders.
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Anyway, crypto industry is well aware of this Scope Insensitivity or large number numbness:
You'll see retail degens dreaming of $XRP hitting $10.
At $10 USD, $XRP FDV would hit $1 trillion (half the BTC) but they think BTC at $120 000 USD is 'expensive'.
Many don't even know you can buy a fraction of BTC.
That's why bitcoiners push to price BTC in sats.
Seeing BTC at $120 000 feels 'expensive' yet seeing it at $0.12M on a Bloomberg terminal shows growth potential.
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By any traditional measures, crypto looks expensive.
Adjusting for liquidity (cashing out $36B DOGE) shows our huge paper wealth.
The comparisons force perspective. And I see numbers trough crypto market caps.
Anyway, GM, and have a nice Sunday.
