Memes, AI, and DeSci are now the hottest topics in the crypto space, almost dominating the entire social media landscape. The recent trend has replaced the previous discussions around Web3 infrastructure.
The crypto narrative of 2024 has almost completely shifted towards some new projects, with topics that once led the growth of Web3 now replaced by a new set of narratives on social media. These topics may not necessarily be directly related to price fluctuations, but they reflect people's focus on active and speculative token communities.
The discussion volume around stablecoins has surged by over 93%, mainly due to its close association with DEX trading, lending, and the revival of centralized markets. Tether (USDT) and various cryptocurrency-supported or synthetic stablecoins have seen growth over the past year, with the total surpassing 20.02 billion. Now, stablecoins are regarded as an important barometer of market sentiment.
According to Kaito's data tracking, the discussion volume regarding Data Availability (DA layer) has decreased by over 94%. The popularity of EigenLayer has essentially disappeared after the airdrop season in the first half of 2024. As the largest data availability layer in the market gradually dominates, data availability has quickly become a 'solved' problem, and even a minor detail in the context of Web3.
Another topic that has not been discussed much in the past 12 months is account abstraction. Most applications have found a way to seamlessly integrate wallets. Account abstraction is more associated with projects in gaming and the metaverse, which aim to attract regular users.
Web3 wallets are now sufficiently functional, especially wallets like Phantom which are very popular on Solana. The implementation of account abstraction relies more on cross-chain applications, but there has not been significant breakthroughs in this area over the past year. The market share of GameFi has also decreased by over 42%. Although Animoca Brands has been working hard to revitalize this topic and launch Mocaverse, the discussion volume around the metaverse has also declined by over 46%.
The decline in most tokens has caused the L2 narrative to lose a significant chunk of attention, decreasing by 58.72%. With the exception of a few top networks, traffic on L2 chains is also relatively low.
Additionally, the discussion heat around crypto ETFs has also decreased. Despite these funds having a significant impact on Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), the discussion volume about ETFs has dropped by over 63%. This topic has gradually been neglected, mainly because most of the hype is based on speculative expectations prior to their release.
In the past 12 months, the discussion volume related to RWA (Real World Assets) has also declined by over 50%.
AI tokens DeSci are growing the fastest.
The AI narrative has once again become a major winner in terms of attention. The mention volume on social media has increased by over 116%, coinciding with the highest returns of AI-related tokens. The increase in AI mentions on social media aligns with the growth in Google search volume, accelerating in the last quarter of 2024.
In terms of awareness, DeSci has seen the largest increase, reaching an astonishing 2,640%. One reason is that DeSci, as a niche token, has not yet competed with the larger projects of the previous wave, making it easier to draw attention.
The popularity of DeSci is partly due to Binance's support and the listing of the BIO token. Moreover, Vitalik Buterin has also publicly supported DeSci tokens. Currently, the market size of DeSci tokens is still relatively small, with a market cap of around $1.1 billion. The quality and research capabilities of these projects have yet to be fully validated, and some tokens are even extensions of high-risk memes.
Although the narrative activity around DeSci is very high, it has not yet fully reflected the potential of the industry. Overall, while new emerging trends have high attention, the heat may gradually dissipate as the industry matures.
In the past year, the scope of cryptocurrency discussions has greatly expanded, surpassing simple comparisons between Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins. The expectations for a booming season of altcoins in 2025 have also been validated in a short time. Nevertheless, this year, smaller assets have not shown overwhelming performance, although some token communities have outperformed other parts of the market.