Determining the Initial Value of Cryptocurrencies

It is quite obvious that the total market cap of cryptocurrencies has enjoyed impressive growth since their inception. It was able to hit the magic $2trn figure, standing at $2.064trn as at the time of writing. That is close to 2.5 times the value of crypto at the start of this year, 2021, as per coinmarketcap data.

While all these huge figures are truly impressive, things haven’t been like that. The increased market capitalization has been more of a result of increased price values than an increase in crypto supply. This begs the question, is there a way of determining a crypto’s initial value? Read on to find out

Understanding Value Determination

Save for stablecoins, cryptocurrency values follow one age-old market principle, demand and supply. The two forces influence the availability of a coin’s market supply, hence influencing the value buyers are willing to pay for it.

If the demand of a coin outweighs its supply, buyers find themselves in a position where they have to compete to acquire one coin. Some are willing to pay extra to get the coin. The rest of the buyers are in turn obliged to pay the higher price to secure their coin purchases, pushing prices up. The reverse is also true where oversupply is concerned. Too many coins in supply facing too few buyers results in a drop in coin prices in a bid to attract buyers. 

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It is important to point out a contrast between cryptos and government issued currencies. The crypto’s means of price determination is completely different from fiat currencies, whose prices are determined by a system of very complex government monetary policies. Even within these Fiat currencies, huge differences arise such as free-floating currencies, fixed/pegged currencies and currencies with crawling pegs. However,  those are subjects for another day.

Ways Initial Value of Crypto can be Determined

There are a few ways one can gauge a crypto’s initial value. Some require some painstaking work while some are quite simple and need a quick check. The main ways include

Checking Crypto Data Listing Sites

Perhaps the easiest way to gauge a crypto’s initial value is to visit a trusted site that keeps data on cryptos. Such sites usually have comprehensive economic statistics starting from the point crypto was launched. The most trusted such site is coinmarketcap.com, whose services the article has already utilized in the very first paragraph. 

Apart from data regarding the initial value of crypto when it was launched, the site shows many other important market stats very useful to crypto investors. One can find detailed price performance over the years to the current date, showing how many times the prices have gained or shrunk. Graphs on such sites can help one identify the longest bull or bear markets and even research more as to what sparked the performance. Daily rates of price change are available, which is important for day trading. Statista is another reputable site with comprehensive data on cryptos as well as many other things.

Visiting the Parent Blockchain’s Github Repository

One can alternatively visit a coin’s blockchain official repository on GitHub. The repository contains every slight data regarding the project, from its coding to the purpose and time of launch, marketing strategy, pricing, etc.

GitHub is an online platform that provides software developers with amazing internet hosting services as well as version control. The platform offers distributed version control as well as source code management using Git. Most blockchain developers host all data regarding their crypto blockchain on its special repository on GitHub. It is where data on the crypto’s initial launch value can be found.

To be able to find data on the price on the platform will however be quite an uphill task since it requires scouring through mountains of data. Most of the data is on the blockchain’s source coding, so could be quite off-putting to someone with no knowledge of coding languages. 

On the plus side, it is a community of coding enthusiasts. So one can be helped to quickly navigate to the area of concern if he/she makes the inquiry.

Making Calculations from Value of Crypto Growth Stats

A less easy way of identifying cryptocurrencies’ initial value involves a little bit of mathematics. It is however less accurate since growth stats won’t show prices to the exact cent.

As a start, one needs to have the current price of the crypto whose initial value they need to gauge. Current prices can easily be found on the internet by simply searching the respective coin. The next needed piece of data is the rate at which the coin’s value has grown since its inception. It calls for specific web searches on by what percentage the price has grown from the point it went public. 

With the two one can use the percentage growth rate to drive back to the coin’s initial value. But as explained earlier, the price won’t be the exact accurate one. In addition, smaller cryptocurrencies lack such data, largely because just a few dozens out of the more than 5000 altcoins are popular. The popular coins have easy to access data

Conclusion

It is possible to determine the initial value of a cryptocurrency through three major ways as has been determined. Each way comes with its own levels of difficulty and accuracy.

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Perhaps the best way would be to visit the crypto statistical sites as they offer both easy to find and accurate data on historical pricing. The parent blockchain’s repository on GitHub also offers very reputable info on crypto, including its initial launch value. It is however hard to navigate without help. One can also make calculations to drive at the initial value. It would be less accurate though, with data on smaller altcoins hardly being available.