Binance has released its 2024 Research Full-Year Report offering a comprehensive analysis of the trends, developments, and narratives that shaped the crypto industry in the past year [2024], while also highlighting key themes to watch in 2025.
Crypto Industry Overview – 2024
In 2024, the cryptocurrency industry saw a remarkable expansion, with market capitalization growing by 96.2% year-on-year (YoY), driven by significant gains in the first and fourth quarters.
The introduction of U.S. spot BTC ETFs in January 2024 marked a turning point, bolstering sentiment and attracting new capital. Favorable macro-economic conditions, including the U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut in September 2024 and optimism following the U.S. Presidential election, further fueled growth.
Key narratives included:
- The points meta
- Restaking
- Memecoins
- AI agents, and
- Stablecoins
Looking forward, attention will focus on:
- Global monetary policies
- Regulatory developments
- Additional ETF approvals, and
- Emerging crypto-specific trends
Bitcoin Performance – 2024
Bitcoin’s year was highlighted by U.S. spot ETF approvals in January 2024 and the much-anticipated breach of the $100K milestone in December 2024.
Bitcoin ETFs attracted approximately $35 billion in net inflows, bringing total assets to over $105 billion. Bitcoin’s dominance surpassed 60%, a level not seen since 2021. The fourth Halving event reduced annual issuance, and the ecosystem saw a 2,000%+ rise in DeFi total value locked (TVL).
Key areas to watch include:
- The growing maturity of ETFs
- Potential federal initiatives like a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve
- Corporate adoption, and
- The evolution of Bitcoin’s Layer 2 (L2) and
- Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystems.
Ethereum and Alt-L1s – 2024
Ethereum maintained its leadership among alt-L1s in market cap, trading volume, and DeFi TVL.
Meanwhile, Solana dominated metrics like daily transactions and active addresses, driven by its low transaction fees.
In 2025, important themes include:
- U.S. Ether ETFs
- The potential for more dApps launching proprietary chains
- The Pectra Upgrade, and
- Ethereum’s prioritization dilemmas.
- Solana broke records for fees and DEX volume and saw increased developer activity.
- BNB Chain advanced with scalability (opBNB) and storage solutions (Greenfield).
- Notable updates included Avalanche9000, Sui surpassing Aptos, and TON’s reduced activity in H2 2024.
- Emerging projects like Berachain and Monad also deserve attention.
Layer 2 Developments – 2024
2024 was a pivotal year for L2s, marked by numerous token launches across optimistic and zero-knowledge protocols.
Base L2 stood out, achieving 39% of TVL and 67% of daily active users, despite lacking a native token. As airdrop rewards diminish, 2025 will test L2s’ ability to sustain activity and capital without heavy reliance on incentives.
DeFi Growth – 2024
DeFi made a strong recovery, with TVL increasing 119.7% YTD to $119.3 billion.
This resurgence brought innovations in on-chain financial primitives, narrowing the gap between DeFi and centralized exchange (CEX) experiences. Enhanced consumer and institutional adoption, alongside rising competition among protocols, are driving the sector toward real-world applications.
Stablecoin Market – 2024
Stablecoins reached a record-high market cap of $205 billion, ending the year at $204 billion – a 56.8% YoY growth.
- USDT grew 50.2%, but
- USDC gained traction with an 82.4% market cap increase.
- Ethena’s USDe, launched in late 2023, quickly climbed to third place with a market cap of $5.9 billion.
Web3 Gaming – 2024
The gaming sector’s market cap grew by 44%, trailing the broader crypto market’s 96.2% growth.
Unique active wallets interacting with games rose by 580%, reaching over 50 million by year-end.
Key releases, like Off the Grid, highlighted Web3 gaming’s mainstream potential.
Memecoins and AI Agents – 2024
Memecoins were the top-performing sub-sector, with 212% growth, dominated by Ethereum and Solana ecosystems.
- Pump.fun, a popular launchpad, contributed $400 million in revenue.
- AI agents, driven by innovations like Truth Terminal and $GOAT, gained significant traction, with major contributions from Virtuals Protocol and ai16z.
SocialFi and DePIN – 2024
SocialFi platforms faced challenges in user retention, as daily unique active wallets dropped from 35 million to 11.3 million.
However, dApps like Farcaster showed promising growth with developer-focused features. DePIN initiatives expanded into compute, telecommunication, and energy, though revenue generation varied across projects.
Web3 Investments – 2024
Web3 projects secured $9.2 billion across 1,432 investments, with $4 billion directed toward:
- Infrastructure (44%), followed by
- DeFi (16%) and
- Gaming (9%)
Looking Ahead to 2025
Eight key themes are expected to drive the crypto industry forward in 2025, spanning macroeconomic factors, Bitcoin’s ecosystem, AI integration, yield-bearing stablecoins, and more.
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