• Original title: "Introducing the Crypto Market Map"

  • Original author: Electric Capital

  • Original compilation: Peisen, BlockBeats

Editor's note: Electric Capital has mapped the encryption market after tracking more than 1,500 projects in the entire encryption field, dividing encryption projects into six technical levels, including core infrastructure, extensions, interoperability, developer tools and services, and protocols. and applications, the analysis concludes that DeFi has now become the main category of crypto; NFT now supports the entire crypto application; scalability and interoperability projects are maturing; consumer-oriented applications and protocols are growing; innovative technologies have evolved from theory to The stage shifts to the practical stage.

The Crypto Market Map tracks over 1,500 projects across the crypto space. The goal of the Crypto Market Map is to help people understand and put projects into context within the crypto environment. It provides a clear picture of the industry structure and the roles played by different companies and projects.

This site is an important place for the community to stay on top of the ever-expanding crypto space.

The Crypto Market Map is the first tool to contextualize each major project’s role in the ecosystem. The crypto market map is divided into six technology tiers, from the bottom of infrastructure projects to the top of end-user facing projects. These layers reflect the progression of crypto infrastructure maturation.

The six technical layers of the crypto market map include:

1. Core Infrastructure: This base layer includes Bitcoin and other Layer 1 blockchain projects that expand on Bitcoin’s initial design, offering improvements and different trade-offs. Mining services, hardware manufacturers, and other infrastructure-level projects are included in this tier.

2. Scaling: As the use of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other Layer 1s increases, projects emerge to solve scalability issues. This layer includes Layer 2, Layer 3 and modular blockchain projects.

3. Interoperability: As the number of chains increases, the ability to transmit information across chains becomes critical. Projects at this level focus on achieving cross-chain communication, data sharing and asset transfer.

4. Developer Tools and Services: This layer lists the tools, services, and data providers that are critical to developers and users. It covers everything from development frameworks to data analysis tools.

5. Protocol: These projects are characterized by the fact that most of the rules are executed on-chain. Many different front ends can be created on top of these protocols to serve different user groups. These projects cover a variety of use cases such as DeFi, NFTs and gaming, social, identity and data sovereignty, privacy, and more.

6. Applications: These projects are characterized by the fact that most of the rules are not executed on-chain. These projects cover a variety of use cases such as centralized finance, creator platforms, NFTs and games, social, identity and data management and sovereignty, and privacy.

The line between protocols and applications is not always clear, and many projects can be considered both. This is because many applications in crypto have both off-chain and on-chain components.

In the crypto market map, there are 138 projects listed in multiple categories.

The Crypto Market Map aims to provide a visual representation of where most projects in the crypto space are building. The height of each level shows the number of items. The highest levels have the most items. Within each hierarchy, categories with more items are on the left and categories with fewer items are on the right.

As encryption technology matures, encryption becomes increasingly specialized and complex. We created the Crypto Market Map to provide an overview of the rapidly expanding crypto industry.

As of June 2019, the Electric Capital market map has included 500+ projects. Although only important projects are taken into account, 1,500+ projects are included in the 2024 Crypto Market Map.

Since the first version of the market map was released in 2019, there have been significant changes in the crypto space:

DeFi has now become a major category in crypto. In 2019, the DeFi category was not on the market map as it was not yet sufficiently separate from non-protocol financial applications. Projects like Uniswap and Compound launched less than a year ago. DAI, the third-largest stablecoin today with a circulating supply of $34 billion, had yet to be launched at the time. At that time, the total value locked (TVL) of the entire DeFi was less than $500 million. Today, DeFi has $85 billion in TVL and is the largest category on the crypto market map, with 394 projects spanning 14 subcategories, including brand new specialized subcategories like yield, liquidity staking, liquidity re-staking, and more.

NFTs now underpin entire crypto applications. In 2019, the most well-known NFT collectibles like Cryptokitties were included in the “games” category. Few independent collections exist. Most applications don’t use NFTs. Today, NFTs have become the asset standard across gaming, creator platforms, music, art, loyalty, finance, identity, and more. Protocols that allow lending, borrowing and derivatives on NFT assets have become an entirely new category, covering 49 projects.

Scalability and interoperability projects are maturing. In 2019, there were 17 Layer 2 projects. There are 8 cross-chain and interoperability projects. Today, scalability and interoperability exist as separate “technology layers” in the crypto market map, spanning many categories and subcategories. There are now 73 significant Layer 2 projects. Layer 3 projects have emerged. Modular blockchain is a new category within Scalability, with over 60 significant projects, more than all Layer 2 and cross-chain projects combined in 2019. Intent and Account Abstraction is a new category within the interoperability layer with 11 projects.

Consumer-facing applications and protocols are growing. Gaming, social and other consumer-facing applications are expanding rapidly. In 2019, there were only 30 major gaming projects; today, there are 121 projects across games, gaming platforms, and the Metaverse. Social Applications and Protocols now has 110 projects.

Innovative technology has moved from the theoretical stage to the practical stage. Innovations that were still theoretical in 2019 now have active projects. For example, zero-knowledge technology has grown from a handful of pioneering projects like Zcash to being used by 159 projects across the crypto market map.

As individual categories mature, some undergo consolidation. In 2019, smart contract platforms and exchanges were the two largest categories of crypto projects. The number of projects in these two categories has not grown significantly as users and developers have consolidated onto fewer platforms. As each category matures, we expect the same consolidation effects to affect other categories as well.

Specialization has become crucial in the cryptocurrency space in order to keep up with the progress of different categories. Each area requires unique expertise. As cryptocurrencies expand, it becomes increasingly challenging to fully understand all verticals. The Crypto Market Map aims to address this issue by providing an overview of the entire industry.

The Crypto Market Map is intended to only include major projects and undercounts all projects in the cryptocurrency space. The purpose of the Crypto Market Map is to include projects with significant industrial or cultural impact and long-term relevance.

The projects in this market map come from a pool of thousands of crypto projects. To be included in the market map, projects must have at least one of the following characteristics:

  • Over $2M raised since 2019 and active updates since March 2024

  • Over $50M raised since 2019, with active updates since March 2024

  • 50+ developers participating in 2024

  • Top 100 by market cap on Coingecko

  • Major DeFi projects on its chain on DefiLlama

  • Individual projects with significant community support of over 10,000 Twitter followers

  • Individual projects that play a leading or prominent role in a certain chain's ecosystem

Even if they meet the above criteria, projects participating in hackathons are excluded as well as projects that do not show intention to deliver their initially announced product or whose delivery timeline may be too far off.

The crypto market map is not yet complete and is in beta. Please help us improve it! This map is still in beta and far from complete.

We have reviewed thousands of crypto projects for inclusion on the market map, but we expect there will still be gaps. Some items may be missing due to missing data sources. Classification may be subjective, so items may be missing from some categories.

Additionally, as time passes and new projects become increasingly important, keeping the map up to date will be a community effort.

By publicly building the crypto market map, we aim to provide a valuable and community-driven tool for everyone in the crypto industry.

Missing items? Wrong classification? General feedback? Please contribute here to improve and expand the crypto market map.

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This article is reprinted with permission from BlockBeats

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