Author: Frank, PANews
2024 is destined to be a remarkable year in the development history of cryptocurrencies. From the formal approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs to the newly elected President Trump's plan to make Bitcoin a national strategic reserve, cryptocurrencies are gradually becoming a new type of internationally recognized emerging asset. Bitcoin broke through the $100,000 mark, MEME coins on Solana emerged one after another, and the once-popular projects faded into obscurity, creating a stark contrast in the crypto market. Behind these changes, public chains remain the core battleground of the crypto market, and all of this competition is manifested in the competition among public chains.
So from a data perspective, which public chains truly experienced a rise in 2024? Which public chains' decline may not be underestimated but are actually in decline? PANews conducted a review and summary of this.
Data Explanation: The subjects of this review are high-activity Layer 1 and Layer 2 chains, focusing on metrics such as TVL, token price, market capitalization, active address count, and transaction volume throughout the year, from January 1, 2024, to December 29, 2024. Some public chains that launched their mainnet in 2024 used the initial data of their tokens at launch and year-end data. TVL data is sourced from Defillama, daily active and daily transaction volume data comes from Tokenterminal and official browsers, while price data comes from Coingecko.
The public chains reviewed this time include:
Layer 1: Solana, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Sui, Aptos, TON, Avalanche, Cardano, Hyperliquid, Fantom (Sonic), Tron, Near
Layer 2: Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, Polygon, Blast, Scroll, StarkNet, Taiko, Linea.
Layer 1 TVL averaged a 7-fold increase, with Hyperliquid and TON showing the highest growth.
In terms of TVL data, overall, the analyzed public chains grew their total TVL by 117.7% over the year. Among them, Layer 1 saw an average TVL growth of 707.69% in 2024, while Layer 2 projects experienced an average growth of 8,515.22%. However, this is mainly due to Taiko's very low initial TVL at launch, leading to a growth multiple of 825 times; excluding Taiko, other Layer 2 chains averaged a growth of 294.69% this year.
Among Layer 1, the highest TVL growth is from Hyperliquid, TON, and Aptos, all exceeding 10 times, with Hyperliquid's TVL increasing by 4,407% since its launch. Among Layer 2, Taiko and Base are this year's kings of growth, with Taiko's TVL increasing by 82,500% from launch to year-end, while Base's TVL grew by approximately 721.51% throughout the year.
In addition to those that grew, some public chains' data not only failed to grow significantly after a year but also experienced a certain degree of decline. Among them, zkSync saw the most severe drop, with TVL decreasing by 41.25%, followed by Optimism (-16.69%), Fantom (-13.95%), Tron (-9.17%), and Polygon (-1.67%).
Half of the public chains saw declines in daily active users, with Solana having the highest daily activity.
In terms of network activity, Hyperliquid, Sui, and TON saw the highest increases in daily active address counts in 2024, with increases of 13,381.48%, 3,350.55%, and 2,409.43%, respectively. Besides these three public chains, several others, such as Base, Aptos, and Solana, also saw their daily active data increase by more than 10 times over the year.
Surprisingly, among the 22 analyzed public chains, 9 saw varying degrees of decline in daily active user data this year. Among them, zkSync and StarkNet experienced the most severe drop in daily active users, exceeding 90%. Additionally, Near, Blast, Polygon, Avalanche, Cardano, Optimism, and Tron all experienced varying degrees of decline in daily active levels compared to the beginning of the year.
At the beginning of the year, Tron had 2.2 million daily active addresses, ranking first among all public chains. After a year of changes, Solana became the public chain with the highest number of daily active addresses, reaching 4 million. Moreover, in the statistics of the highest daily active data, Solana also achieved the highest number of daily active users at 8.8 million.
In terms of transaction volume, Hyperliquid once again becomes the public chain with the largest growth, with the number of transactions growing by approximately 248,900% within the year. Taiko grew by 4,471.43%, and Base's transaction volume increased by 1,948.78%, all exceeding tenfold growth. The Avalanche (C-Chain) network saw the most severe decline in transaction volume, dropping from 2.8 million transactions at the beginning of the year to 260,000, a decrease of 90.71%. However, the main reason for this decline is that January 1, 2024, coincided with a peak of unusual fluctuations in Avalanche's transaction volume. Excluding this anomaly, Avalanche's daily average transaction volume has generally maintained in the hundreds of thousands daily, with little significant fluctuation.
In addition, zkSync's decline also reached 90%. In comparison, zkSync's drop is indeed quite obvious; after the airdrop ended, the on-chain transaction volume rapidly decreased from the original millions to just over a hundred thousand transactions daily.
Token price performance was mixed, with HYPE leading the way.
Some were happy while others were sad; in terms of token performance, half of the tokens rose, while half fell. Hyperliquid's token performance was the most outstanding, with an increase of approximately 1,272.30% over the year, and the maximum increase reached 1,648.00%, becoming the only public chain token to exceed a tenfold increase. However, it is important to consider that Hyperliquid's token HYPE was only issued at the end of November, which gives it a certain advantage in terms of percentage increase compared to other public chains. However, there were also other public chain tokens issued this year, with many showing little increase, and quite a few even declining.
In addition, other public chains with better token performance include Sui, TON, Tron, and BNB Chain, all of which saw their token prices double or more. Solana had high market enthusiasm this year, but in fact, compared to January 1, 2024, its token SOL price only increased by 92.26%.
Compared to the beginning of the year, the token prices of 10 public chains have declined to varying degrees. Excluding the two non-issued tokens, Base and Linea, this proportion is exactly 50%. Among these declining tokens, StarkNet and Blast saw the largest declines, reaching 75% and 65%, respectively.
In terms of market capitalization, Ethereum still occupies the top position among public chains, with a market cap of approximately $274.2 billion at the beginning of the year and reaching $409.4 billion by the end of the year, representing an annual growth of about 49.28%. BNB's market capitalization always ranks second, slightly above SOL.
Ethereum remained the most subdued, while Solana was in full swing.
In addition to horizontal comparisons, the development of the following public chains may need special mention; a one-sentence description is half fireworks and half delight.
Solana is an indispensable public chain in 2024. This year, Solana's data changes are impressive, completely emerging from the shadow of FTX's collapse, achieving significant breakthroughs in scale, even showing momentum to compete with Ethereum. Over the past year, Solana has led the MEME trend, becoming the public chain with the most users by leveraging the popularity of MEME.
At the beginning of the year, Solana's TVL ranked fourth, rising to second by year-end. Its daily active user count was only eighth at the start of the year, but by year-end, it became the public chain with the highest daily active users.
As the elder brother of public chains, Ethereum seems to remain calm in this bustling 2024. Many year-end data are not much different from the beginning of the year, with daily active users growing by 9% over the year, and daily transaction volume nearly flat. Only the TVL increased by 127%. If we exclude the 49% increase in the ETH price itself, this data appears to have little real change, while the stagnation of TVL in coin terms is also one reason for the lackluster performance of the token price.
The main reason for this change may be the diversion from Layer 2. For Ethereum, whether it maintains this stable state in the new year or experiences more fluctuations may require more innovative content to lead.
Sui and Hyperliquid, a competition between tomorrow's stars and supernovae?
Hyperliquid is undoubtedly the supernova of the public chain track this year, surprising the market with almost all data growth rates ranking first, including daily active growth, transaction volume growth, TVL growth (ranking second), and token price growth. However, there are some objective factors to consider in Hyperliquid's rapid rise: first, it has the shortest lifespan, making it almost the youngest among the analyzed public chains. Second, while the growth rate is high, its overall scale is still far behind public chains like Ethereum or Solana. Especially regarding active user counts, Hyperliquid's total user count is only 286,500, which still does not match Solana's daily active numbers at the beginning of the year. In terms of other data, its TVL is about $1.7 billion, which is one-fifth of Solana's.
However, Hyperliquid has already approached Solana in terms of daily transaction volume, ranking second. In terms of market capitalization, it lags behind several public chains that performed far worse this year. From this perspective, Hyperliquid's development potential in 2025 remains enormous, but this development may require stronger and sustained data support.
Sui is considered Solana's main competitor for the future, and from the data performance, Sui network also showed impressive results this year. The TVL increased nearly 7 times within the year, daily active users grew by 33.5 times, and the highest daily transaction volume exceeded 300 million transactions. The price of its token is also among the largest increases, rising by approximately 441.13% over the year, with the highest increase exceeding 520.25%. In terms of growth rate, Sui's growth speed in 2024 has already surpassed Solana in some areas, but it now faces another issue: competition from projects like Hyperliquid or Aptos. Whether the Sui ecosystem can explode in 2025 may need to find some new breakout points.
Apart from the few representative public chains mentioned above, in fact, other public chains are also unwilling to be passive in 2024, with some transforming towards AI, represented by Near, and others upgrading their brand by issuing new public chains, such as Fantom changing to Sonic. Moreover, in the Layer 2 track, 2024 is also considered one of the hottest narratives for public chains. This year, several star Layer 2s issued airdrops, but generally performed poorly on-chain. The best performer is Base, which currently has no token plan. Additionally, while Taiko has low market enthusiasm, it has performed well on-chain; however, the overall data volume is still not large, and future development remains to be observed.
Finally, when comparing the relationships among the various data of these 22 public chains, it can be seen that the tokens with the largest increases in 2024 are also generally the public chains with the best growth in active users. From this perspective, the most important indicator for public chain development may still be users. For investors, how to judge the future expectations of a project may also hide the secrets in these simple data.
