Article source: Frank
Author: Frank, PANews
2024 is destined to be a colorful year in the development history of cryptocurrency. From the official approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs to the plan proposed by the newly elected president Trump to use Bitcoin as a national strategic reserve, cryptocurrencies are gradually becoming a newly recognized asset class internationally. Bitcoin has broken the $100,000 barrier, and MEME coins on Solana are emerging one after another, overshadowing previously star projects, creating a stark contrast in the crypto market. Behind these changes, public chains remain the core battlefield of the crypto market, and all this competition is reflected in the competition among public chains.
So, from the data perspective, which public chains truly experienced a rise in 2024? Which public chains' decline may not be underestimated, but rather is a real downturn? PANews conducted a review and summary on this.
Data explanation: The focus of this review includes high-heat Layer 1 and Layer 2 chains, observing annual metrics such as TVL, token prices, market capitalization, active address counts, transaction counts, etc., from January 1, 2024, to December 29, 2024. Some public chains that launched their mainnet in 2024 used the initial data at the time of their token launch and year-end data. TVL data is sourced from Defillama, daily active and transaction volume data from Tokenterminal and official browsers, and price data 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's TVL averaged a sevenfold increase, with Hyperliquid and TON seeing the highest growth.
In terms of TVL data, overall, the analyzed public chains have seen a TVL growth of 117.7% over the year. Layer 1's average TVL growth in 2024 was 707.69%, while Layer 2 projects saw an average increase of 8,515.22%. However, this was mainly due to the low initial TVL of L2 chain Taiko at its launch, resulting in a growth multiple of 825 times. Excluding Taiko, the average growth of other Layer 2 chains this year was 294.69%.
Among Layer 1, the highest TVL growth was seen in Hyperliquid, TON, and Aptos, all exceeding tenfold, with Hyperliquid's TVL growing by 4,407% since its launch. In Layer 2, Taiko and Base are the kings of growth this year, with Taiko's TVL growing by 82,500% from launch to year-end, while Base's TVL increased by approximately 721.51% throughout the year.
Aside from growth, some public chains have not only failed to significantly increase their data after a year, but have also experienced some 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 a decline in daily active users, with Solana having the highest daily active users.
In terms of network activity, Hyperliquid, Sui, and TON saw the highest increases in daily active addresses in 2024, with increases of 13,381.48%, 3,350.55%, and 2,409.43%, respectively. Besides these three public chains, Base, Aptos, Solana, and a few others also saw their daily active data increase by more than ten times this year.
Surprisingly, among the 22 analyzed public chains, 9 chains experienced varying degrees of decline in their daily active data this year. Among them, zkSync and StarkNet saw the most severe drop in daily active users in 2024, exceeding 90%. Additionally, Near, Blast, Polygon, Avalanche, Cardano, Optimism, and Tron all experienced varying degrees of decline compared to the beginning of the year.
At the beginning of the year, Tron's daily active address count was 2.2 million, ranking first among all public chains. After a year of changes, Solana became the public chain with the highest daily active addresses at 4 million, and additionally, in the statistics of the highest daily active data, Solana also achieved a peak of 8.8 million daily active users.
In terms of daily transaction counts, Hyperliquid once again became the public chain with the largest increase, with a growth of about 248,900% over the year. Taiko grew by 4,471.43%, and Base's transaction count increased by 1,948.78%, all exceeding tenfold growth. Avalanche (C-Chain) saw the most severe decline, with daily transactions dropping from 2.8 million at the beginning of the year to 260,000, a decline of 90.71%. However, this drop is primarily due to a peak period of abnormal fluctuations in Avalanche's transaction count on January 1, 2024. Excluding this anomaly, Avalanche's daily average transaction count has generally remained in the hundreds of thousands daily, without significant fluctuations.
Additionally, zkSync's decline reached 90%, which is quite significant. After the end of the airdrop, on-chain transaction numbers rapidly dropped from millions to only tens of thousands daily.
Token price performance is mixed, with HYPE taking the lead.
Some are happy, some are worried; in terms of token performance, half of the tokens increased while half decreased throughout the year. Hyperliquid's token performed the best, with an increase of approximately 1,272.30% over the year, and a maximum increase of 1,648.00%. It became the only public chain token with an increase of over tenfold. However, it is essential to consider that Hyperliquid's token HYPE was only issued at the end of November, giving it an advantage in terms of price increase compared to other public chains. Nevertheless, some other public chain tokens were issued this year, with many showing little increase, and some even declining.
Additionally, other public chains with good token performance include Sui, TON, Tron, and BNB Chain, all of which saw their token prices double or more. Solana had high market heat this year, but in fact, compared to January 1, 2024, its token SOL's price only increased by 92.26%.
Compared to the beginning of the year, 10 public chain token prices have decreased to varying degrees. Excluding the two unlaunched tokens, Base and Linea, this proportion is exactly 50%. Among the declining tokens, StarkNet and Blast have experienced the largest drops, reaching 75% and 65%, respectively.
In terms of market capitalization, Ethereum still holds the position of big brother among public chains, with a market cap of about $274.2 billion at the beginning of the year, and reaching $409.4 billion by year-end, marking a growth of approximately 49.28% over the year. BNB's market cap has consistently ranked second, with a slightly higher increase than SOL.
Ethereum remains the most subdued, while Solana is firing on all cylinders.
In addition to horizontal comparisons, the development of the following public chains may need to be explained separately. In summary, it's half fireworks and half joy.
Solana is a public chain that cannot be overlooked in 2024. This year, Solana's data changes are remarkable, completely emerging from the shadow of FTX's collapse. Not only has it achieved a significant breakthrough in scale, but it even shows a momentum of standing shoulder to shoulder with Ethereum. Over the past year, Solana has led the MEME trend, leveraging the hype around MEME coins to become the public chain with the most users.
At the beginning of the year, Solana's TVL ranked fourth, rising to second place by the end of the year. The daily active users ranked eighth at the start of the year, but became the public chain with the highest daily active users by year-end.
Ethereum, as the big brother of public chains, seems to remain calm in this bustling year of 2024. Many data points show little difference between year-end and year-beginning, with daily active users growing by 9% over the year, and daily transaction counts remaining almost flat. Only the TVL increased by 127%, and if the 49% increase in ETH price is excluded, this figure seems to show little real change, with the stagnation in TVL denominated in coins being a reason for the underwhelming performance of coin prices.
The main reason for this change may stem from the diversion caused by Layer 2. For Ethereum, whether it will maintain this steady state in the new year or have more fluctuations may require more innovative content to lead the way.
Sui and Hyperliquid, the 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, such as daily active user growth, transaction count growth, TVL growth (ranked second), and token price growth. However, Hyperliquid's rapid rise must consider some objective factors: first, it has the shortest existence time, making it the youngest among the analyzed public chains. Second, while the growth rate is high, the overall scale is still far behind public chains like Ethereum or Solana. Particularly, in terms of active user numbers, Hyperliquid currently has only 286,500 total users, which is still less than Solana's daily active users at the start of the year. Other metrics like TVL amount to about $1.7 billion, which is one-fifth of Solana's.
However, in terms of daily transaction count, Hyperliquid has already approached Solana, ranking second. Yet in market capitalization, it lags behind several public chains that performed far worse than it this year. From this perspective, Hyperliquid's potential for growth in 2025 remains massive, though this development may require stronger and sustained data support.
Sui is considered a major competitor to Solana in the future. From the data performance, Sui's network has also shown impressive results this year. TVL increased nearly sevenfold, with daily active users growing by 33.5 times, and the transaction count exceeding 300 million on the highest single day. The token price has also increased significantly, ranking second only to Hyperliquid, with an approximate rise of 441.13% over the year, reaching a maximum increase of over 520.25%. In terms of growth rate, Sui's speed in 2024 has already surpassed Solana in some aspects, but it now faces another issue of competition from projects like Hyperliquid and Aptos. Whether Sui's ecosystem can erupt in 2025 may require finding some new breakout points.
Besides the aforementioned representative public chains, in fact, other public chains in 2024 were also unwilling to remain stagnant, with some transforming towards AI, represented by Near, and others upgrading their brand through the issuance of new public chains, such as Fantom rebranding to Sonic. Additionally, 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 turned out to be Base, a Layer 2 that currently has no token plans. Meanwhile, Taiko also has low market heat but performed well on-chain, though the overall data volume is still not large, and future development remains to be observed.
Finally, when comparing the relationships between the data across these 22 public chains, it can be observed that the tokens with the highest increases in 2024 are generally also the public chains with the best growth in active users. From this perspective, perhaps the most important indicator for public chain development is still the users. For investors, how to judge a project's future expectations may be hidden beneath these simple data points.
