I wrote this up last night before it hit $1 billion, distribute at will:
With 10,960,750 bitcoins in circulation at a price of $94.50/BTC, Bitcoin has surpassed the market cap of one billion dollars.
If Bitcoin was a stock, it would still be considered a small-cap company until it reaches $2 billion, but given that March 6 (just 22 days ago) Bitcoin had a $.5 billion market cap, it could be a short time before Bitcoin joins the ranks of the mid-cap companies.
Some companies of note that currently hold a $1 billion market cap are Office Depot, Freddie Mac, and US Airways (
http://www.forbes.com/global2000/).
With Bitcoin prices holding around $4/BTC this time last year, a price of $94.50/BTC today shows a 2360% increase, if the price value were to rise as much over the course of the next 12 months, we could be seeing the price as high as $2,232 this time next year. This would surpass the revenue of the United States video game industry. Such growth will certainly pique the interest of industry leaders and investors looking to get a piece of the market and join the many venture capitalists who have started putting some serious money into Bitcoin businesses, such as CoinLab's $500,000 (
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/04/24/coinlab-attracts-500000-in-venture-capital-for-bitcoin-projects/) venture capital investment and BitPay, which has just received additional seed funds following their initial $510,000 investment (
http://www.floridaventuresourcing.com/2013/03/bitpay-raises-additional-seed-funds/).
If Bitcoin was a country, it would be greater than the market value of the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose M1 stands at $1,016,000,000. This, after having passed Aruba ($868,500,000) and Fiji ($794,600,000) earlier in the week (
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2214rank.html). Perhaps this will inspire some small country that wishes for a currency that does not lose value to switch to Bitcoins and reap the benefits of it.
