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A comment on A Cryptocurrency Website Changes Its Data, and $100B in Market Value Vanishes. Parent comment

Re:A Cryptocurrency Website Changes Its Data, and $100B in M... by pedrocr on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @06:46PM (#16111256)
That's just how market caps work in general. The same argument has been made for startup valuations. It's not a problem with the metric at all and doesn't hold for the case being discussed as actual market based transactions in enough volume are happening. It's not just a made up number. Here's an argument that Facebook was not worth 33B$ in 2010 because only 3% of its value had ever been transacted:

https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33...

It's worth almost 17 times more than that now. Market cap is not a perfect metric because it doesn't capture the depth of the market willing to buy but coins don't make that any different.

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Re:A Cryptocurrency Website Changes Its Data, and $100B in M... by mitchellberry on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @07:25PM (#16111517)
No one measures the marketcap of gold or soybeans. When was the last time someone mentioned the marketcap of the USD?

It's an absurd metric made worse by the fact that more coins are issued every 5 mins. If price remains the same virtually all coins will go up in marketcap regardless.

What company issues new shares every single day?

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