The five rankings are: Top50 Projects (Completed TGE), Top50 Projects (Not Completed TGE), Crypto VC Top 50 Investment Institutions, Top10 Angel Investors, and Top20 Best CEOs.
Original Title: (RootData: 2024 Crypto Development Research Report and Annual Rankings)
Written by: RootData Research
Review of the Crypto 2024 Venture Investment Market
The Crypto industry has entered the fourth wave of asset innovation, with high transmission between primary and secondary markets.
With the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, the Crypto industry has established a solid long-term liquidity foundation. Overall, the primary market has shown some lag compared to the secondary market, but there is a clear transmission between the two. The primary market showed a trend of initial growth followed by stability in the first three quarters of 2024: Q1 total financing was $2.545 billion (a slight year-on-year increase of 0.76%), Q2 continued to rise to $2.75 billion (a quarter-on-quarter increase of 8.05%), and although Q3 saw a slight adjustment to $2.406 billion, it still experienced a significant year-on-year growth of 26.05%.
In fact, the Crypto industry has entered the fourth wave of asset innovation, mainly driven by non-EVM MemeCoins, BRC20, AIGC, and RWA assets. However, the market seems not to have reached a broad consensus on these asset innovations in the past 12 months, which is also a significant reason why the primary market has not been able to create new price highs like BTC. In our view, one of the development rules of the Crypto industry is to find new native assets that achieve maximum consensus, driving capital inflow.
Transaction structure changes: In the past 12 months, 54.9% of institutions did not make a single investment, and only 12% of projects completed two or more rounds of financing.
54.9% of institutions did not make a single investment in the past 12 months, with the average financing amount increasing by $53,139 per round compared to 2023, an increase of about 0.62%. The Crypto primary market exhibits a clear head effect, and a survey conducted by RootData in September shows that most investment institutions do not invest or are inactive, due to:
No significant innovations have yet been observed in the industry;
High degree of project information opacity;
Uncertainties brought about by rapid industry changes;
Reasons such as poor liquidity and exit difficulties.
According to RootData statistics, there were 1,459 financings in the past 12 months, with 1,283 projects having only completed one round of financing, 149 projects completing two rounds, and 27 projects completing three or more rounds. Compared to 2021-2022, these three figures decreased by 27.7%, 30.0%, and 10.2%, respectively, but compared to the 2022-2023 fiscal year, they increased by 7.6%, 11.2%, and 86.3%. This also indicates that the industry is still in its early stages, with many technologies and innovations yet to be validated, and it also suggests that many projects will face pressure for subsequent financing.
Popular Investment Tracks and Ecological Competition: The Base ecosystem is the fastest-growing L2 over the past 12 months, and DeFi is considered the most undervalued track by over 41% of investors.
The infrastructure sector saw over $4.2 billion in investment and financing over the past 12 months, while the DeFi sector had over $1.4 billion. According to a September investor survey, over 41% of investors consider DeFi to be the most undervalued track, while 48% believe that L1/L2 tracks are overvalued.
Ethereum continues to dominate the ecological ranking with a scale of 2,562 projects due to its first-mover advantage and complete developer ecosystem. The Solana ecosystem has rebounded strongly after the impact of the 2022 FTX incident, reaching 823 projects. The Bitcoin and TON ecosystems are also rapidly developing, with 383 and 141 projects, respectively.
It is worth noting that Base, as a L2 solution supported by Coinbase, has rapidly accumulated 428 projects since its launch in August 2023, achieving over 28% growth in the Ethereum L2 ecosystem, making it the fastest-growing L2 network.
L1, DeFi, and AI tracks are the hottest, with DeFi, Game, and AI having the most new project tags added in the past 12 months. Monad has the highest single financing.
According to RootData statistics, DeFi has the most labels added to new projects in the past 12 months, followed by Game and AI sectors. However, it is worth noting that DeFi and AI are also the highest-ranked sectors in terms of popularity over the past 12 months, while Game, despite being a popular tag for new projects, lagged in popularity rankings. This may be due to the fact that Game has not achieved satisfactory results in terms of product or token price performance over the past four quarters.
Reviewing the top 10 financing deals over the past 12 months, Monad completed a $225 million financing at a valuation of $3 billion in April this year, ranking first. Notably, among the top 10 deals, besides the common high-capitalization sectors like CeFi and mining, Celestia's $100 million OTC financing announced in September also made it into the top ten deals, which may reveal that OTC trading will become one of the important trends in the industry.
Ranking Background and Standards
Since the release of the RootData List in 2023, its rankings have garnered attention from more entrepreneurs, investors, LPs, and general Crypto enthusiasts. RootData is dedicated to showcasing the core forces and trends of industry development through rigorous data analysis.
The statistics for this ranking cover the period from October 31, 2023, to October 31, 2024, and five rankings are published: Top50 Projects (Completed TGE), Top50 Projects (Not Completed TGE), Crypto VC Top 50 Investment Institutions, Top10 Angel Investors, and Top20 Best CEOs.
Top50 Projects (Completed TGE)
Liquidity Characteristics: Tokens from 9 listed projects are now available on five major exchanges (Binance, OKX, Bybit, Upbit, and Coinbase). Among them, 82% of projects' tokens are listed on at least three major exchanges.
Track Characteristics: The listed projects come from 22 sectors, with Layer1, DeFi, and AI being the most prevalent. Compared to last year, this year's list has added 5 MemeCoin projects, as we believe MemeCoins are building a new asset class and demonstrating unique value in enriching Crypto asset categories and helping Crypto grow beyond its niche.
Financing Characteristics: The median financing for listed projects is $23.15 million, with an average of 2 rounds of financing. 13 listed projects did not receive any financing. Notably, in terms of FDMC/Raised calculations over the past 12 months, all of the Top 5 projects made it onto the list: Celestia (3,670x), Ondo Finance (1,819x), Jito (1,322x), Ethena (1,134x), and Sei (816x).
Top50 Projects (Not Completed TGE)
Financing Characteristics: The median financing for projects on this list is $25.71 million, with an average of 2 financing rounds. Seven projects have a valuation of $1 billion or more (inclusive), while four projects did not disclose financing.
Track Characteristics: Most listed projects cover 26 sectors, with a significant proportion in modularization, DeFi, infrastructure, and AI. In the past four quarters, although GameFi, CeFi, and NFT sectors have entered a period of innovation stagnation, we still chose projects from these sectors that represent innovation.
Crypto VC Top50
The 50 institutions on the list averaged 28 investments over the past four quarters, with an average of 7 leading investments. To some extent, these institutions shaped the investment trends and characteristics of Crypto over the past four quarters. 46% of the institutions are based in North America, 20% are located in China (including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan), and the remaining 34% are distributed across Singapore, Dubai, and other locations.
Among the selected institutions, approximately 80% are Crypto-native investment firms (including the Crypto project investment departments of traditional investment firms), while the rest are traditional investment institutions. Different types of institutions are driving the Crypto early-stage entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem to become more robust.
Angel Investors
Currently, the angel investor community is rapidly emerging, with RootData having recorded 2,037 angel investors (who have made at least one investment). These active angel investors are primarily successful Crypto entrepreneurs, and the top 10 angel investors in the past 12 months averaged 18 investments. As the angel investor community continues to grow, the Crypto early-stage innovation ecosystem will become healthier.
CEO Top20
According to a September survey of investors released by RootData, 75% of investors are considering the CEO and team as the primary factor in their investment considerations. RootData currently has recorded 1,827 Crypto project CEOs, and we believe that quality Crypto CEOs are a scarce resource and the most critical force in the industry's growth.
