Bitcoin market cap overtakes Berkshire Hathaway, soars past $800B

Bitcoin (BTC), the original cryptocurrency, is gaining momentum versus global large-cap stocks, overtaking the market value of American conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway. Its market cap breached $800 billion on Dec. 4 after nudging past billionaire investor Warren Buffet’s company on Dec. 3.

As Bitcoin surged past $40,000 over the weekend, its market cap rose to above $780 billion, just beating out Berkshire Hathaway’s $779 billion market cap it closed the market with on Dec. 1 (based on its class A stock, BRK.A). 

BRK.A has seen a slight decline recently, slipping around 1.3% over the past five days. Despite the recent drop, Berkshire Hathaway is still up 4.7% over the past 30 days and 14.7% year to date (YTD).

The volatility of BRK.A is nowhere near that of Bitcoin, which has surged 20% over the past month and almost 150% YTD, according to data from CoinGecko. The cryptocurrency has been steadily hitting multimonth highs recently, surpassing $41,000 on Dec. 4 for the first time since April 2022.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s market cap amounts to $811 billion, or 4% higher than the market value of Berkshire Hathaway. Founded in 1839, ??Berkshire Hathaway is a multinational holding firm headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States. ??Berkshire’s main business is insurance, from which it invests in a big portfolio of companies, including Bank of America and Apple.

Cryptocurrency lawyer John Deaton took to X (formerly Twitter) to comment on the news. “That’s a pretty damn big bottle of rat poison,” Deaton wrote, referring to the words of Berkshire Hathaway CEO Buffett, who famously called Bitcoin “rat poison squared” in 2018.

Related: Bitcoin tops $40K for first time in 19 months, Matrixport tips $125K in 2024

According to data from CompaniesMarketCap, Bitcoin is now the 10th-biggest asset by market cap, following Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) and Nvidia, whose market value currently stands at $834 billion and $1.2 trillion, respectively.

With Bitcoin’s market cap surging past $800 billion, the cryptocurrency is now 38% short of its all-time high $69,000 price posted in November 2021.

The current bullish action could wind up marking the second time in the history of Bitcoin that its market capitalization reaches $1 trillion. Bitcoin previously broke the $1 trillion market cap in February 2021 at $53,700.

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