Original Title: Half-Year Report 2024

Author: Binance Research

Translation: Plain Blockchain

After a significant growth of 109% in 2023, the cryptocurrency market continued to rise in the first half of 2024, with a total market value increase of 37.3%. This growth was mainly driven by a 60.2% increase in the first quarter of the year, while the second quarter saw a pullback, with a 14.3% decrease in market value.

In January, the successful launch of the Exchange Traded Fund ("ETF") for Bitcoin in the United States marked a key moment for the industry, triggering a period of bullish sentiment and positive capital inflows. Although the initial price reaction was relatively subdued, the market saw strong gains in the following months as it absorbed the impact of the ETF on attracting new capital, increasing investor accessibility, and strengthening the acceptance of cryptocurrencies as mainstream investments.

Notably, several narratives gained momentum in the first half of this year, such as points meta, Restaking speculation, memecoins frenzy, and the airdrop season. While some of these narratives may have subsided, they undoubtedly served as strong drivers of on-chain activity and trading in the first half of the year.

Looking ahead, we will closely monitor the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy, the approval and progress of the Ethereum spot ETF, and the emergence or resurgence of cryptocurrency-specific narratives through monitoring on-chain indicators. We are aware of the structural drag that will be brought about by the unlocking of a large number of tokens in the coming months and years, and we urge investors to conduct their own research. The good news is that the valuations of many tokens have retraced to more reasonable levels over the past few months.

Here are some key point summaries of this report:

1. Public Chains: Layer1 & Layer2

Layer1 ("L1") showed strong performance at the beginning of the year, with Bitcoin gaining market dominance after its fourth halving, the launch of the Runes protocol, and the approval of the US Bitcoin spot ETF (which has attracted over $14 billion in capital inflows to date). Ethereum experienced a reset breakout and the EIP-4844 update, BNB Chain continued to work on op BNB and Greenfield, and Solana performed well in the memecoin field and launched blockchain links ("blinks").

The first half of 2024 was the airdrop season for the Layer2 ("L2") sector, especially for zero-knowledge ("zk") projects. The commitment of incentive measures attracted a large influx of capital into L2 chains, resulting in a total locked value (TVL) of $43 billion, a 90% increase in just the first 6 months.

2. DeFi

2024 witnessed a significant influx of capital into decentralized finance ("DeFi"), driving the year-to-date (YTD) TVL growth to 72.8%, increasing from $54.4 billion at the beginning of the year to $94.1 billion. This growth benefited almost all sectors of DeFi, whether in the major markets or niche markets, prompting some protocols to bring financial primitives that were previously unattainable onto the chain.

3. Stablecoins

The stablecoin market saw a significant rebound, currently only 14.5% lower than the peak before the collapse of TerraUSD (UST) in April 2022. As of June 30, 2024, the market capitalization of stablecoins reached $161 billion, setting a new high for two years. While Tether's USDT continues to dominate, the market share of Circle's USDC and Ethena's USDe has also increased.

4. NFT

The NFT market experienced turbulence in the first half of the year, with a decrease in sales volume and a floor price drop of over 50% for major projects. Blur continued to dominate with the push of the BlastToken airdrop, and Pudgy Penguins achieved some success in their physical toy aspect. Bitcoin NFTs also continued to perform well.

5. SocialFi

SocialFi continued to develop, with the Lens protocol announcing the upcoming launch of its zk chain, Lens Network. Farcaster saw continued user growth after the launch of Frames, and friend.tech released their Token and v2. Fantasy.top trading card game was also a significant highlight.

6. GameFi

The Web3 gaming sector performed strongly in the first quarter, but the market capitalization of game project tokens in the second quarter saw a significant decline, along with other meme coin markets. Despite the price drop, user growth metrics were healthier than ever, with projects like Pixels and Hamster Kombat attracting a large number of players through token airdrops.

Other notable areas include memecoins, artificial intelligence ("AI"), and decentralized physical infrastructure network ("DePIN"). These sectors continued to receive strong attention from investors and the broader community in the first half of 2024.

7. Outlook for the Second Half of the Year

As we enter the second half of 2024, we will continue to be particularly interested in six key themes, and we expect significant developments in these areas throughout the year. These themes cover various narratives and sectors, such as those related to the macro environment, the Bitcoin ecosystem, ownership economy applications, and real-world assets ("RWAs").

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。