Total value of cash: $7 trillion
Total value of bank deposits: $83 trillion
Total value of shares: $73 trillion
Total value of gold: $8 trillion
Total value of cryptocurrency: $0.3 trillion
Some figures from http://money.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-money-markets-one-visualization-2017/
Clearly there is still potential for growth in the cryptocurrency market, but with near perfect information and minimal barriers to entry, this market is perhaps the most efficient – in the economic sense – in human history, so we can expect the price of crypto to tend rapidly towards the cost of its production.
What would gold be worth if anyone could easily create an equally beautiful, useful and rare metal? And one that was actually indistinguishable from gold?