Key Takeaways

• Growth in Total Crypto Market Cap in 2024: The cryptocurrency market demonstrated a strong upward trend throughout 2024. The U.S. approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs catalyzed rapid market growth early in the year. Later, following the resolution of the U.S. presidential election, the crypto market saw substantial expansion. Bitcoin’s price surpassed $100,000 in December, driving the total market capitalization to a historic peak of nearly $3.8 trillion.

• Strong Performance of BTC Spot ETFs: In 2024, the assets under management (AUM) of BTC spot ETFs steadily grew from $74 billion at the beginning of the year to $105.4 billion by year-end, accounting for 6.69% of BTC’s total market capitalization. The AUM of ETH spot ETFs increased from $10.2 billion to approximately $12.1 billion by the end of the year, representing 3.25% of ETH’s total market capitalization.

• Slow Recovery in Web3 Investment and Financing: The investment and financing activities in the Web3 sector have shown a slow recovery trend, with funding amounts gradually rebounding and the number of projects increasing. The total publicly disclosed investment and financing amount for the year reached $9.83 billion, reflecting an approximate 6% increase compared to $9.28 billion in 2023.

• BTC Completes its Fourth Halving: In 2024, BTC underwent its fourth halving, reducing the block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Each halving event has intensified competition among miners. In the first half of 2024, BTC sidechains and applications experienced rapid growth. Merlin completed its TGE, Bitlayer secured multiple funding rounds, and Babylon emerged as a leading protocol for Bitcoin restaking.

• Challenges for Ethereum: 2024 was a challenging year for Ethereum, as new public blockchains continuously challenged its dominance. Compared to other sectors of the crypto industry, Ethereum Layer 2 solutions significantly underperformed in the market, with the token prices of multiple Layer 2 and sidechains dropping by more than 50%.

• A Booming Year for the Solana Ecosystem: 2024 was a prosperous year for the Solana ecosystem, with sectors demanding high blockchain performance, such as AI and DePIN, becoming mainstream narratives in the crypto market, greatly enriching the Solana ecosystem. Meanwhile, driven by the Meme craze led by Pump.fun, decentralized exchanges like Raydium, Orca, and Jupiter achieved remarkable growth in trading volume and active users.

• Strong Recovery of DeFi Protocols: DeFi protocols experienced a strong recovery, with total value locked (TVL) reaching a new high of $211.7 billion on December 17. The liquid staking sector surpassed $61 billion in TVL, becoming the largest segment within DeFi. Token issuance platforms, represented by Pump.fun, accumulated total fees and revenue of $337 million in 2024, highlighting their unique business model and the rapid rise of the token launch platform sector.

• Diversified Development of the Memecoin Market: The Memecoin market witnessed diversified development, with themes centered around animals, politics, and AI. Combining meme culture, social trends, and community-driven momentum, it has become one of the crypto market’s most entertaining and speculative sectors. The market capitalization of the Memecoin sector grew by 336.66% over the year, accounting for 2.98% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization.

• RWA Gains Industry Attention: Real World Assets (RWA) have attracted significant industry attention, driven by the increasing demand for tokenizing traditional financial assets, the influx of institutional capital, and innovations in on-chain technology. The total value of on-chain RWA assets has reached $15.1 billion (excluding stablecoins). Among them, personal credit is the most significant category of RWA, totaling $9.6 billion and accounting for over 70% of the total RWA assets.

• Huge Potential for AI Agents: The AI Agent ecosystem has demonstrated significant growth potential, driven by technological innovation and market demand. AI Agents propel industry development through various aspects, including launchpads, framework tools, computing and data, model creation and training, and applications. With their unique advantages, AI Agents provide comprehensive support from innovative project implementation to intelligent applications.

• Future Growth Forecast: According to the Prophet AI model analysis, the cryptocurrency and stablecoin markets are expected to experience substantial growth in the coming years. By 2025, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization is projected to exceed $7 trillion, with Bitcoin potentially surpassing $180,000. The stablecoin market capitalization is expected to surpass $400 billion by 2025.

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