Where the interest in creating millions of cryptocurrencies came from and what users are doing with them
Every day, tens of thousands of new tokens are created in the crypto market. Not all of them have value and the ability to be listed on centralized exchanges such as Binance, Bybit or Coinbase. Token creators often resort to listing their assets on decentralized exchanges, where they don't need to get third-party permission to start trading a token.
Since March 2024, more than 1.1 million tokens have been created on the Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, Blast and Base blockchain networks, while the Solana network has created nearly 1.5 million tokens, according to a dashboard on Dune. As Coinbase director Conor Grogan noted, twice as many cryptoassets were created between April and May 2024 as were created on the Ethereum blockchain between 2015 and 2023. Second place, following the Solana blockchain, in terms of the number of tokens issued was taken by Base, the second-tier network for scaling Ethereum, surpassing the 1 million token mark since March this year.
Although not all of these tokens end up on exchanges, the number of new tokens listed on crypto exchanges exceeds tens of thousands weekly. Since the beginning of July, the figure of tokens added to DEX has exceeded 420 thousand, according to intoTheBlock. At the same time, users' interest in decentralized trading platforms (DEX) is growing. Since March 2024, the share of DEX in terms of trading volume relative to centralized exchanges has almost doubled to 14.4%.
Decentralized exchanges (decentralized exchanges, DEX) are blockchain-based trading applications that use smart contracts to exchange, buy and sell assets. The listing of assets on such platforms is not regulated by anyone - anyone can add a token to the trading lists on DEX if they have internet access, a little liquidity and technical knowledge.
Key factors that are driving the growing interest in blockchain technology may be improved user experience and growing incentives such as eirdrops that provide revenue opportunities. TheBlock writes that the expanding ecosystem of decentralized applications also offers a wider range of features, catering to a variety of user needs.
Number of Google searches and meme projects
The growth in the number of new tokens and the share of DEX trading volumes relative to centralized crypto exchanges is not the only indicator with positive dynamics, which may indicate an increased interest in cryptocurrencies.
The number of searches on Google for the term onchain has increased fivefold since the beginning of 2024, an all-time high.
So-called onchain analytics is a type of research into data from public blockchain networks such as bitcoin and Ethereum. Blockchain technology is an open registry of information with the entire history of transactions, allowing anyone competent from anywhere in the world and at any time to look at these transactions and draw their own conclusions.
Researchers have begun to use onchain to observe users' transactional behavior, price forecasting, and correlating data from other sources of information for deeper analytics.
The trend to popularize cryptocurrencies in 2024 was probably driven by the hype surrounding the memcoin market. Google data on the number of Memecoin searches also showed significant growth - the figure has increased more than tenfold since the end of 2023. $BTC
