Written by: Alvis & Tom, MarsBit | Mars Finance
Introduction: The Surprises and Certainties of the 2024 Crypto World
In 2024, the cryptocurrency industry can be described in four words - 'Rapid Advance.' This year, Bitcoin broke the 100,000 dollar mark, delivering a heavy slap to those who said 'Bitcoin is too expensive'; memes soared from the beginning to the end of the year, AI Agents and DeSci surged, driving a wealth tide from science fiction to reality; new public chains like TON and SUI broke through from the cracks, proving through technology and ecology that latecomers can also achieve greatness.
This year was also an 'unexpected' year: the Ethereum ecosystem did not experience the explosive growth anticipated, while Solana maintained its position as a top public chain through ecology and technology; DeFi was once forgotten but made a strong comeback driven by policy; and assets known as 'classic veterans,' such as XRP and XLM, proved that veterans can always make a comeback at critical moments with a collective rally.
The cryptocurrency world has never known calm, and 2024 is especially so. This report not only reviews the highlights of the year but also provides insights into the logic and impact behind each phenomenal event. From technological changes to market evolution, from policy shocks to capital games, we will review the ten most unexpected events in the cryptocurrency industry this year and explore where this 'rapid advance' is taking us.
The Most Exciting Event of the Year - Bitcoin Breaks the 100,000 Dollar Barrier
On January 10, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the Bitcoin spot ETF, marking the formal acceptance of Bitcoin by the mainstream U.S. financial market and introducing new regulatory pathways for the market, attracting the attention of institutional investors. Subsequently, the fourth Bitcoin halving event in April further reduced the supply of new Bitcoin, with each halving historically accompanied by price increases in the following months. The most critical turning point occurred in November when Trump won the U.S. presidential election, his positive attitude and policy expectations towards cryptocurrencies ignited market sentiment, pushing the price of Bitcoin from 68,000 dollars at the beginning of November to officially surpass 100,000 dollars by December 5, marking a historic high due to multiple factors.
The total net inflow of funds into Bitcoin ETFs reached 36.8 billion dollars, which is 81 times that of gold ETFs.
The total assets under management (AUM) of Bitcoin ETFs currently stands at 110.3 billion dollars, holding more than 1.1 million Bitcoins.
Several institutions continue to increase their Bitcoin holdings: MicroStrategy, as the largest publicly traded company holding Bitcoin, continues to increase its Bitcoin holdings. By the end of 2024, MicroStrategy held over 444,000 Bitcoins. The world's largest asset management company, BlackRock, has also been increasing its Bitcoin holdings, currently reaching 550,000 Bitcoins.
The U.S. election and policy easing boost Bitcoin's rise: Trump's victory in the election and his clear support for cryptocurrencies, stating that the current SEC chairman Gary Gensler would be replaced, and the large purchase of crypto assets through WLFI investment company, will lead to more favorable policies for crypto. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve's implementation of loose monetary policies, with interest rate cuts in September, November, and December totaling 100 basis points, provided strong support for Bitcoin.
The Most Unpromising Undertaking of the Year - The Ethereum Ecosystem
In 2024, the Ethereum Layer 2 ecosystem failed to flourish as expected, leading to continued pressure on Ethereum's price. Looking back at history, the ETH/BTC exchange rate once broke 0.085 in 2021, with ETH's price reaching 4800 dollars, and the market was full of confidence in its prospects. However, by early 2024, the ETH/BTC exchange rate had dropped to 0.056, with ETH's price hovering around 2300 dollars, significantly lagging behind Bitcoin's strong performance. Although ETH's price briefly surpassed 4000 dollars during the altcoin market explosion in March, it could not maintain stability, subsequently experiencing a downward trend, dropping to a low of 2100 dollars. By the end of the year, as Bitcoin continued to set new highs, ETH briefly exceeded 4000 dollars but again failed to maintain its upward momentum, quickly falling back to a low of 3100 dollars. If calculated based on the previous bull market's ETH/BTC rate, Ethereum's price today should be around 8000 dollars; however, the current price is still less than half and has not even broken the historical high. This weak situation stems from a combination of multiple factors:
The Shift in Ethereum's Valuation Logic: Bitcoin, as 'digital gold,' has a valuation logic similar to that of gold, driven mainly by market recognition of its scarcity, safe-haven attributes, and long-term value storage, thus maintaining strong stability during macroeconomic changes. In contrast, Ethereum's valuation logic has shifted to resemble the PE valuation methods used by traditional companies, focusing on network effects, application scenarios, and ecological development. As market expectations for Ethereum's future appreciation gradually diminish, especially in light of the lack of breakthroughs in Layer 2 ecology and real-world applications, its valuation support has weakened, making it difficult for prices to maintain upward momentum.
The Effects of the Dencun Upgrade Are Limited: Although Ethereum underwent the Dencun upgrade in March, the main benefits of this upgrade are not directly reflected on the Ethereum mainnet but significantly enhance the performance of Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon. These second-layer networks help expand Ethereum's processing power by bundling user transactions and transmitting them back to the Ethereum main chain in bulk, facilitating batch settlements.
This upgrade significantly reduced the data storage costs of Layer 2, with Gas fees decreasing by over 90%. For example, the Gas fee for token exchanges on Base will drop from approximately 0.58 dollars to 0.01 dollars after the implementation of EIP-4844.
The upgraded Ethereum mainnet will rely more on income generated from selling block space, while tax revenue from the application layer will shift to general Layer 2 networks. Although Layer 2 solutions have made significant technological progress, the ideological issues within their teams have become increasingly severe, lacking the efficient execution displayed by competitive chains like Solana, making it difficult for them to effectively compete with other chains in the ecological contest.
Ethereum Faces Inflation: The weakness of the Ethereum ecosystem is also closely related to the continuous growth of staked amounts. Currently, the staked amount of Ethereum has exceeded 54 million ETH (about 45% of the total supply), and the restaked ETH accounts for nearly 10% of the total staked amount. Emerging protocols like liquid staking and restaking (such as Eigenlayer) have greatly increased the yield opportunities for participants, attracting large amounts of capital inflow. Although these innovations bring higher returns for stakers, they also continuously increase the issuance rate of ETH, leading to rising inflationary pressures on Ethereum.
Ethereum ETF Struggles: The Ethereum ETF initially experienced continuous net outflows after approval. Although by the end of the year, the situation improved with a net inflow of 733,000 ETH, the inflows into the Ethereum ETF were still significantly less than those into the Bitcoin ETF. A major reason is that the Ethereum ETF failed to provide staking support, causing investors to miss out on about 3.5% of potential yield. Additionally, the management fees of the ETF further compressed investors' actual returns, leading many investors to prefer directly staking ETH instead of participating through the ETF, further weakening the ETF's appeal and competitiveness.
Vitalik Faces FUD Pressure: Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin faced widespread skepticism and FUD from the crypto community this year, particularly in light of the Ethereum ecosystem's development falling short of expectations. The Ethereum Foundation sold a total of 4,466 ETH this year, further exacerbating the market's confidence crisis.
These factors combined have led to Ethereum being at a relative disadvantage in the competition with Bitcoin, failing to achieve the anticipated ecological explosion.
The Most Surprising Token Sale of the Year - BOME
The pre-sale of BOME was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the 2024 crypto market. In just 24 hours, BOME raised over 10,000 SOL. Within three days of its establishment, BOME successfully listed on Binance, with a market cap exceeding 1.5 billion dollars, achieving a goal that many projects aspire to. The success of BOME not only sparked a pre-sale frenzy on Solana but also attracted more meme coin projects to join the competition, further promoting the development of the Solana ecosystem.
Slerf's 10 Million Dollar Disappearance: In contrast to the success of BOME, Slerf's pre-sale encountered an unexpected turn. Although Slerf raised 50,000 SOL, due to a developer's operational mistake, all SOL and Slerf tokens were put into the liquidity pool at once, burning the LP, which sparked widespread community discussions. Nevertheless, Slerf maintains the richest on-chain liquidity among all meme coins.
RUG risks intensify: The total amount of funds raised in pre-sales on the Solana chain in 2024 has exceeded 600,000 SOL. Several chains, including ETH and Base, have initiated a trend of funding and issuing tokens, but this has been accompanied by a large number of projects lacking transparency that directly rug pull due to unclear mechanisms and moral hazards, resulting in significant losses for investors.
AI Pre-sale Token Issuance: With the rise of AI agents, the AI-Pool project initiated by A16zDAO members has become a representative of innovation. AI-Pool raised over 35,000 SOL within 24 hours, and the METAV token surged from a private placement market cap of 16 million dollars to 96 million dollars, rising over 500%. The project uses Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) technology to manage funds through AI agents, avoiding the centralization risks present in traditional pre-sales.
The Most Luxurious Bet of the Year - Polymarket
Polymarket is a blockchain-based prediction market providing real-time, quantitative probability data to help users better predict future event outcomes. In 2024, as the U.S. election approached, Polymarket's trading volume and user activity reached unprecedented heights.
FOMO's Bet: At the beginning of 2024, the platform's monthly trading volume was about 50 million dollars, and by September, it had surpassed 500 million dollars, easily exceeding 2.5 billion dollars in October. The total amount of open contracts surged from 7 million dollars in January to 500 million dollars in November. Polymarket's market depth and liquidity have matched some leading DEXs, even surpassing the total locked value of the TON network at one point.
The Largest Bet in U.S. Presidential Election History: In 2024, Polymarket's website traffic surged, reaching 35 million visits in October, double that of popular betting platforms like FanDuel. Polymarket's cumulative trading volume for the U.S. presidential election exceeded 3.6 billion dollars, surpassing other traditional betting platforms, making it the largest election bet in history.
More Accurate Predictions than Mainstream Media: Compared to traditional betting platforms, Polymarket has consistently shown a higher probability of Trump winning. This can be partly attributed to the crypto community's support for Trump, whose voting tendencies influenced the market pricing. Even in cases where polls generally support Harris, Polymarket has maintained a high win rate, proving its accuracy in predicting real-world events. Polymarket has transformed from an innovative platform in the cryptocurrency industry to a widely recognized mainstream platform, becoming an important data source for mainstream media reporting.
The Most Profitable Application of the Year - PumpFun
PumpFun is a meme coin issuance and trading platform based on the Solana chain, which quickly emerged in the crypto community through its innovative token issuance mechanism and unique market operation methods. The platform's core feature is its fair issuance principle, as it does not conduct pre-sales or team allocations and utilizes a joint curve pricing model to achieve automated dynamic adjustments of token prices and issuance.
The Fastest Growing Platform in Crypto History: Since its launch in January 2024, PumpFun's market performance has been astonishing. PumpFun has launched over 5.2 million tokens, capturing a staggering 70% of the meme coin issuance share on the Solana chain, and has generated over 200 million dollars in revenue. Its peak daily revenue exceeded 14 million dollars, surpassing Uniswap and becoming the fourth-largest protocol in the blockchain space.
A New Stage for Social Celebrities and Cultural Memes: PumpFun has become a new issuance platform for social celebrities, internet memes, and cultural symbols. The meme culture on social media like TikTok is transformed into tokens through PumpFun, not only becoming a tool for personal brand expression but also a way to fundraise and publish political and lifestyle attitudes, such as PNUT and Chillguy. Many celebrities choose to issue tokens to interact with fans and promote personal ideas and viewpoints.
This trend has transformed PumpFun from a mere speculation platform into a cultural phenomenon, where meme coins are no longer just speculative tools but have become a new social language.
The Hottest Track of the Year - MEME
Meme has undoubtedly become the hottest track in the cryptocurrency industry in 2024, with the total market capitalization of the meme coin market breaking 105 billion dollars, setting a new historical high.
Since the beginning of the year, the market has been flooded with frenzied meme coin speculation, with coins like Bonk, WIF, People, PEPE, and Bome generating huge wealth effects.
As mainstream exchanges listed a large number of VC tokens in March, draining market liquidity, many VC tokens plummeted nearly tenfold, plunging the entire crypto market into a phase of tumultuous decline, with the community wailing. This situation triggered strong criticism from the crypto community towards VC tokens, and attention shifted back to the craze for meme coins.
In August, Binance adjusted its listing policy, successively listing meme coins like POPCAT, Neiro, BABYDOGE, CAT, and MOODENG, reigniting market enthusiasm, making meme coins the hottest investment choice.
By October, with the explosive popularity of AI MEME, Desci, AI Agent, and other concepts, the meme coin craze reached unprecedented heights.
The Election Catalyzes the Surge of Dogecoin: Doge surged from a low of 0.074 dollars this year to a high of 0.484 dollars, an increase of over 550%. This wave of increase occurred during the key moments of the U.S. election in October and November, closely related to the actions of Tesla founder Elon Musk. As the 'spokesperson' for Dogecoin, Musk not only publicly supported Trump but also expressed his willingness to serve as the leader of the U.S. Government Efficiency Committee (D.O.G.E.). This series of political and social events injected more public capital into Dogecoin, further fueling its price surge.
Meanwhile, Shiba Inu also experienced a significant increase, rising from 0.0000083 dollars at the beginning of the year to 0.0000457 dollars, an increase of over 450%.
The Rise of Young Forces: PEPE has become the third meme coin after DOGE and SHIB to exceed a market cap of 10 billion dollars. With support from platforms like Coinbase and Upbit, PEPE's price surged from 0.00000086 dollars at the beginning of the year to 0.00002836 dollars, an increase of over 3200%.
Bonk and WIF ranked fourth and sixth in the meme coin market capitalization.
Bonk was born at the end of 2022, during the market low following the collapse of FTX and Solana falling below 10 dollars. As Solana's 'Shiba Inu,' Bonk rose against the market skepticism. Bonk increased from a low of 0.000009 dollars this year to a high of 0.000062 dollars, reaching an increase of 688%.
WIF was born at the end of December 2023, successfully landing on multiple exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, and Robinhood, rising from a low of 0.067 dollars to a high of 4.8 dollars within the year, an increase of over 7100%, becoming a representative of the new generation of meme coins.
The Rising Star Amidst the NFT Recovery - PENGU: Pudgy Penguins NFT, established in 2021, quickly rose to fame with its cute penguin image and unique community culture. Against the backdrop of NFT recovery at the end of 2024, its NFT floor price once soared to 35 ETH, surpassing BAYC, becoming the second-largest NFT project. It subsequently launched the PENGU token, successfully listing on exchanges such as Binance and Bithumb, and within a week, its market cap soared to nearly 2.7 billion dollars, rapidly ranking fifth in meme coin market capitalization.
DeSci MEME Ignites the Market: DeSci (Decentralized Science) has gained attention for its explosive popularity in Memecoins, which can be traced back to last December when the DeSci narrative was spotlighted by CZ's mention and the founding of ResearchHub by Coinbase's founder. Recently, Vitalik and the recently released CZ revisited, and Binance Labs invested in BIO (DeSci's management and liquidity protocol), fueling a high level of on-chain sentiment and creating a series of MEME phenomena. RIF, from the Pump.science platform, represents the compound rifampicin (RIF). Its token surged 2000 times within a week, with its market cap rapidly rising to 250 million dollars. The URO token also rose over 1000 times within a week, rapidly reaching a market cap of 170 million dollars.
The Most Unexpected Revival of the Year - The Comprehensive Recovery of DeFi and DeFi 3.0
After the Luna incident, the DeFi winter lasted for quite some time, but 2024 brought an unexpected revival. The TVL of DeFi significantly rebounded from 55 billion dollars at the beginning of the year to a peak of 140 billion dollars, just a step away from the historical high of 180 billion dollars. Meanwhile, stablecoins maintained strong growth throughout the year, with a total market cap exceeding 205.3 billion dollars. Market confidence gradually restored, with innovative projects continuously emerging, and new platforms becoming the focus of market competition.
DeFi is no longer just returning to the starting point but is transforming into a brand-new 3.0 era.
AAVE and CRV Lead Again: Aave is currently the largest and most rigorously tested lending protocol. As the undisputed leader in on-chain lending, Aave has a highly defensive and sticky moat. With the resurgence of the bull market, higher risk appetite behavior will increase the utilization rate of lending on the platform, driving AAVE's net deposit total to 34.3 billion dollars, firmly at the top of the industry. The AAVE token rose from a low of 70 dollars to a high of 400 dollars over the year, an increase of 471%.
Curve, as a well-established stablecoin trading liquidity pool in the Ethereum ecosystem, has seen its token (CRV) rise from 0.18 dollars at the beginning of the year to 1.33 dollars, an astonishing increase of 638%, influenced by news of institutions like BlackRock betting on the Ethereum ecosystem and promoting DeFi development through the BUIDL fund.
Further proving the strong demand for decentralized lending and liquidity protocols.
Representative Project of RWA: Ondo Finance focuses on RWA tokenization, with the platform's TVL rising to 650 million dollars, attracting widespread attention through innovative asset management. Its token Ondo surged from a low of 0.17 dollars at the beginning of the year to 2.14 dollars, an increase of 1165%, reflecting strong market demand for RWA tokenization.
The New Revolution of Restaking: EigenLayer has pioneered the 'restaking' track, providing groundbreaking capital efficiency and security solutions for the blockchain ecosystem. Its core innovation lies in the Restaking Protocol, which allows users to use staked assets (such as Ethereum's ETH) for security guarantees across multiple networks, increasing capital utilization and reducing reliance on a single token. EigenLayer's total locked value has surpassed 15.2 billion dollars, making it the third-largest protocol on Ethereum, with its token EIGEN rising from a low of 2.1 dollars earlier this year to a high of 5.6 dollars.
The New Trend of Stablecoins in DeFi 3.0: Ethena is a decentralized synthetic dollar protocol based on Ethereum that combines traditional finance (TradFi) yield models, attracting substantial capital inflow. Its annual revenue reached 267 million dollars, and the minted stablecoin USDE's market cap exceeded 6 billion dollars. The ENA token rose from a low of 0.2 dollars at the beginning of the year to 1.33 dollars, an increase of 565%.
Usual is a stablecoin protocol led by Binance and Kraken, which launched USD, a permissionless and fully compliant stablecoin backed 1:1 by real-world assets (RWA). By ensuring that 100% of the actual income generated from RWA is distributed to token holders, it ensures the long-term development of the protocol. Its token surged from 0.01 dollars to 1.65 dollars after being listed on Binance, and its TVL has soared to 1.7 billion dollars.
The Birth of a New Dex King: Hyperliquid's core highlight is its HyperBFT consensus algorithm designed specifically for high-performance perpetual contract order book exchanges, ensuring high throughput of 200,000 transactions per second and a median latency of only 0.2 seconds. This allows Hyperliquid to achieve decentralization while maintaining speed and efficiency similar to traditional centralized exchanges. With its unique Layer 1 blockchain architecture and innovative token standards, Hyperliquid has quickly attracted significant market attention.
The Hyperliquid platform has surged this year, with users now exceeding 280,000, TVL nearing 2.29 billion dollars, and total trading volume surpassing 575 billion dollars. The platform's token airdrop's book value has exceeded 7 billion dollars, breaking Uniswap's record set by the $UNI airdrop launched in September 2020. The HYPE token rose from an initial price of 3.9 dollars to 33 dollars, rapidly increasing its market cap, with FDV (fully diluted valuation) reaching 30 billion dollars, placing it among the top 20 cryptocurrencies.
The Most Explosive Innovation of the Year - AI Agent
In 2024, the combination of Crypto and AI has experienced unprecedented explosions. From the surge in Nvidia's stock price driving the rise of the DePin concept at the beginning of the year, to the universal basic income plan of Worldcoin, and the decentralized AI network provided by Bittensor, the narrative of Crypto and AI has welcomed a wave of operations. However, by the end of the year, the rapid rise of AI agents undoubtedly became the most explosive innovation in the cryptocurrency circle this year. Numerous AI tokens such as ACT, AIXBT, GAME, FAI, PHA, and PAAL ignited market enthusiasm, showcasing the immense potential of the deep integration of AI and blockchain.
AI-agent marks the first large-scale successful landing of CryptoAI, finding practical demand for decentralized computing power, datasets, and machine learning networks. Before this, the demand in these areas was often peer-to-peer and lacked sustainability; the emergence of AI-agent not only broke this bottleneck but also drove the flywheel effect in related sectors. As a bridge between infrastructure and attention economy, AI-agent brings its potential to lower-tier users, promoting the prosperity of the entire ecosystem.
AI Era's Digital Identity Protocol: Worldcoin (WLD), founded by OpenAI's Sam Altman, aims to launch a universal basic income (UBI) supported by artificial intelligence. Although its iris scanner has sparked controversy, its close ties with OpenAI and Altman cannot be overlooked. The integration with OpenAI provides Worldcoin with a strong endorsement and positions it to potentially rank among the top ten cryptocurrencies globally overnight.
The Core of Decentralized AI Network: Bittensor (TAO) claims to be the first 'Neural Internet' providing an interconnected core platform for decentralized AI projects. The platform supports developers in deploying code and competing with other projects for TAO tokens, driving AI innovation. Bittensor aims to become an incubator and proof-of-concept for decentralized AI, creating a new model for the deep integration of AI and blockchain.
In the early stages of the AI Agent phase, a large number of Meme + AI Agents emerged. The current commercial models of both are not significantly different, as they are essentially attention economy, generating culture rather than value. Therefore, as long as one has a sufficiently dedicated following, this token or culture can sustain itself.
The AI Frenzy on Social Media: Goatseus Maximus (GOAT) is the first AI-agent project to gain widespread attention and passionate fan support on social media. Supported by Truth Terminal, its backstory is filled with the madness and creativity reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson. The GOAT token was created on Pumpfun, and within a month, its market cap exceeded 1.3 billion dollars, attracting many fans and investors, proving the huge potential of AI-agents on social platforms.
Building the Metaverse of AI Agents: The Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) is a core infrastructure based on the Base chain, focusing on simplifying the deployment of AI agents, especially in the gaming and metaverse sectors. Through this protocol, developers can easily deploy AI agents and achieve token and revenue sharing, promoting the application of AI technology in the virtual world.
In the early stages, many AI-agent projects chose to launch tokens through the pump.fun platform. However, building a truly sustainable AI-agent ecological platform goes far beyond merely launching tokens. Virtuals is one of the most comprehensive ecological platforms in this field. Its initial business model includes a token launch platform, AI-agent framework, AI-agent production tools, ecological tokens, native influential IP images, and various practical application cases. This multi-dimensional ecological construction enables Virtuals to form a strong flywheel effect in this wave, continuously driving its development. The price of the VIRTUAL token surged from a low of 0.02 dollars at the beginning of the year to over 3.7 dollars, an increase of over 18400%.
Opening New Fields of On-chain Agents: ai16z and Eliza represent the emerging forces of on-chain agents. The Eliza framework is one of the leading projects on GitHub, aiming to support multiple industries (not just cryptocurrency). Its potential lies in uncovering and connecting the long-term correlations of various branched industries. The widespread application of Eliza will promote the cross-industry penetration of AI-agents, accelerating the popularization and development of this technology. The ai16z token's market cap skyrocketed from a million dollars to 1.5 billion dollars in just two months.
The Most Unexpected Event of the Year - The Resurgence of Classic Coins
When we all thought that old coins had no narrative left, in 2024, these classic mainstream assets, which had been forgotten by the market, unexpectedly ushered in a strong rebound, proving that old coins do not die. From policy relaxations to institutions like Grayscale increasing their holdings, these old coins have re-attracted investor attention through concrete actions, becoming new highlights in the market.
SEC Lawsuit Dismissed, XRP Returns to its Peak: The revival of XRP is attributed to the settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). XRP has shed legal disputes and regained the trust of investors and regulators. Its appeal in markets like South Korea has rapidly increased, gradually landing in global payment scenarios. Its price surged from 0.5 dollars to 2.9 dollars, an increase of 480%, and its market capitalization soared by over 130 billion dollars in less than 40 days, with trading volume at one point surpassing Bitcoin, making it the fastest-growing altcoin by market capitalization in 2024.
Tron Sets New Highs: Tron (TRX) has revived its vitality with its advantages in USDT transfers and DApp development. In 2024, the Tron platform became the preferred chain for USDT transfers, ranking first in the number of USDT holding addresses across various chains, significantly boosting the platform's trading volume and total locked value. Tron's TVL reached a new high of 13 billion dollars, generating 560 million dollars in revenue over nearly a year, while TRX's price climbed from a low of 0.1 dollars to a high of 0.45 dollars, an increase of over 350%.
ADA: Cardano, a Layer 1 project that once stood alongside Solana, has recently experienced a rebirth. After Robinhood US relisted ADA, its price quickly climbed from a low of 0.3 dollars at the beginning of the year to a high of 1.3 dollars, showcasing strong market rebound power.
XLM: XLM rose from a low of 0.08 dollars earlier this year to 0.63 dollars in just two weeks, an increase of over 680%.
EOS: EOS rose from a low of 0.4 dollars earlier this year to 1.5 dollars, an increase of over 275%.
The Most Heartbreaking Bubble of the Year - The Bitcoin Inscription Ecosystem Falls from Grace
The dramatic fluctuations in the Bitcoin inscription ecosystem are undoubtedly a classic case in the 2024 crypto market. From initial glory to eventual sharp decline, the story of Ordi profoundly reveals the market's irrational prosperity and warns us that speculative fervor cannot ultimately withstand the harsh tests of reality. In the early stages of the inscription boom, a large amount of speculative capital surged in, driving rapid growth, but the market's quick cooling exposed the weakness of this field.
At the beginning of the year, the top was already reached, and the enthusiasm for the inscription market suddenly dropped: From the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024, the inscription ecosystem, especially Ordi, once became a star application on the Bitcoin network. By introducing the 'inscription' function into the Bitcoin main chain, Ordi expanded Bitcoin's application scenarios beyond transactions, igniting enthusiasm among market investors.
Since its listing on Binance, Ordi's price skyrocketed from 3 dollars to 90 dollars, with its market cap briefly exceeding 2 billion dollars. Similarly, Sats also went live on Binance, reaching a market cap of 2 billion dollars. However, this market frenzy could not last. With speculative funds rapidly withdrawing, Ordi's market cap sharply shrank after March 2024, with its price dropping to a low of 20 dollars. Meanwhile, the overall trading volume in the inscription market significantly shrank, and the liquidity of inscriptions nearly vanished.
The Emergence of Runes Couldn't Save the Day: Runes, as an emerging project in the inscription ecosystem, attempted to reverse the market downturn by enhancing functionality and application scenarios. However, despite introducing several innovative elements and incentives, its attracted capital and user numbers remain limited. In the two months following its launch, Runes' trading volume continued to decline, remaining at a low level. Now, apart from DOG and PUPS, which still maintain market caps of 600 million and 100 million dollars respectively, the inscription ecosystem has almost lost market attention.
The Potential and Future of the Inscription Ecosystem: Although the Ordi and Bitcoin inscription ecosystems have experienced severe fluctuations, the retreat of speculative fervor in the short term does not signify their complete failure. Ordi, as a pioneer in the Bitcoin inscription ecosystem, has successfully expanded Bitcoin's application scenarios, not limited to simple transactions, and has provided new opportunities in decentralized storage and NFTs.
The True Value of the Inscription Ecosystem Lies in its Unique Position in Blockchain Technology and Digital Asset Innovation. The security and decentralization features of Bitcoin make the inscription functionality a potentially huge infrastructure, promising more applications and development opportunities in the future, and Ordi's innovations still have considerable development potential.
Summary: The long wind and waves will come, and we will sail directly through the clouds to the vast sea.
In 2024, the entire cryptocurrency industry experienced a significant upheaval and transformation. The historic moment when Bitcoin broke the 100,000 dollar barrier not only highlighted the strong allure of cryptocurrencies but also proved the undeniable position of digital assets in the global financial system. At the same time, the rise of emerging public chains and the trend of AI tokens once again changed the landscape of the crypto market, bringing unprecedented opportunities and challenges for investors.
As governments gradually introduce more standardized policies and regulations, the cryptocurrency market will become further regulated, providing investors with stronger confidence and protection.
We are firmly optimistic about the future of cryptocurrencies, even though the market may experience repeated fluctuations. However, with continuously evolving technological innovations and an increasingly mature market environment, blockchain technology is bound to usher in broader development opportunities and become an undeniable force in the global finance, technology, and investment sectors.
Note: The chart data source is https://dune.com/marsbit/2024-final
