Earth Market Cap
What Earth is made of

Constituents

Earth's market cap is a sum of non-overlapping slices of real wealth. Each is valued from a named source; the live-market slices are marked daily, the structural ones accrete between annual vintages.

Headline constituents — summed to $1.88 quadrillion

  • Human capital → · accreted $1,065T

    56.7% of the total · human capital · Present value of all future labor income (World Bank CWON), accreted at nominal GWP

    The present value of everyone's future earnings — education, skills, and health. The single largest component of global wealth.

    Distinct from produced/natural capital; it is the value of people, not things.

  • Real estate (land & structures) → · accreted $359T

    19.1% of the total · produced capital · Global property value (Savills), accreted at ~4.5%/yr

    The world's homes, commercial buildings, and the land under them — the largest single asset class on Earth.

    The land+structures portion of produced capital; corporate-owned property is netted against listed equity to avoid overlap.

  • Listed equities → · live $155T

    8.3% of the total · produced capital · World listed-equity market cap, marked daily by the S&P 500 (proxy for global equities)

    The combined market value of every public company on Earth — the daily-moving mark on corporate produced & intangible capital. Scaled from the S&P 500, a close proxy for global equities (FRED's S&P 500 covers the last decade; earlier history is modeled at ~7%/yr).

    Marks the listed slice of corporate produced capital; the 'other produced capital' line is the explicit non-listed remainder, so the two don't overlap.

  • Other produced capital → · accreted $132T

    7.0% of the total · produced capital · Infrastructure, equipment, inventories & private business — CWON produced capital less real estate & listed equity

    Roads, power grids, ports, machinery, inventories, and unlisted private businesses — the produced capital not captured by real estate or public equity.

    Defined as the residual of comprehensive produced capital after real estate and listed equity, so it cannot double-count them.

  • Natural capital → · accreted $146T

    7.8% of the total · natural capital · Forests, minerals, fossil & renewable energy, farmland (World Bank CWON)

    The planet's endowment: energy reserves, minerals, timber, cropland, and protected ecosystems valued in the wealth accounts.

    Asset value of natural resources only; ecosystem-service flows are not separately capitalized here.

  • Gold & precious metals → · accreted $20T

    1.1% of the total · real asset · Above-ground gold & silver stock; modeled at the long-run appreciation rate

    All the gold and silver ever mined — a real, non-claim monetary asset. Modeled at a long-run appreciation rate (no free daily gold-price feed available).

    A physical stock, not a claim; counted once.

  • Cryptocurrency → · live $2T

    0.1% of the total · real asset · Total crypto market capitalization (CoinGecko), used directly

    The total market value of all cryptocurrencies — a born-digital asset class that enters the series in 2013.

    Marked at total market cap; treated as a distinct asset stock (enters 2013, zero before).

Shown, but not added — they net to zero

Financial claims

A bond, a loan, a bank deposit, a dollar of broad money, a derivative contract — each is simultaneously someone's asset and someone else's liability or bet. Summed across the whole planet they cancel to zero, so we report them as context and never add them to the headline. Two traps in particular: the ~$700T derivatives "notional" is a reference amount, not wealth (net value ~$3T), and the various money supplies (M0, M1, M2, broad) are nested subsets of each other, not separate piles. Adding any of these is the most common way to get Earth's market cap badly wrong.

  • Global debt — all sectors $346T

    All borrowing on Earth — households, companies, governments, and the financial sector (~$315T; tradable bonds/debt securities are the ~$140T slice of it). Every dollar of debt is someone else's asset, so it is shown but never added. · Source IIF Global Debt Monitor; BIS / SIFMA

  • Derivatives $25T

    The 'quadrillion-dollar derivatives market' is a NOTIONAL figure (~$700T, BIS) — a reference amount, not wealth. Gross market value is ~$25T; net of offsetting positions, ~$3T. Every contract is a zero-sum bet, so it nets to zero. · Source BIS OTC derivatives statistics

  • Broad money $132T

    Cash plus bank deposits worldwide (broad money, ~$120T). Narrower aggregates — base money / M0, M1, M2 — are nested subsets of this, not separate piles. Each dollar is a liability of the banking system, so it is shown but not summed. · Source FRED / central-bank monetary aggregates