Original Author: Coingecko
Original translation by: Yuliya, PANews
(Top 10 Leading Projects of 2024: Maximum Increase Exceeding 230 Times, 7 Meme Coins Listed) This analysis has sparked widespread attention. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the development trends in the cryptocurrency market, this study analyzes various major narrative themes in the cryptocurrency market from January 1 to December 29, 2024, based on market data from CoinGecko. By tracking the performance of the top ten tokens in each theme, it calculates their average returns relative to the beginning of the year (or the first trading day). The study selected representative tokens with high market capitalization at the end of the period and excluded sectors with specific public chain ecosystems and high thematic overlap. The results show significant differences in annual returns across different narrative themes, with a range from -20.7% to +2,939.8%.
AI and Meme coins lead the market.
The most remarkable cryptocurrency narrative theme of 2024 is the AI sector, with an average increase of 2,939.8% year-to-date (YTD). Following closely is the Meme coin sector, with a year-to-date return of 2,185.1%. The returns of these two sectors far exceed those of other popular narrative themes by more than double.
The Meme coin sector began to significantly lead in March, with monthly returns skyrocketing from 96.6% to 1,713.1%. Despite extreme volatility, Meme coins maintained the highest returns for most of 2024. However, after reaching a historical high return of 3,211.4% on December 9, the sector experienced a pullback as market interest waned.
In contrast, the AI sector experienced a strong rebound towards the end of the year, with December's returns nearly doubling from 1,598.1% to 2,939.8%. This was mainly due to the explosive growth of the AI agent platform Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), which also became the token with the largest increase in the cryptocurrency market this year. Ultimately, the AI sector surpassed Meme coins by the end of December, becoming the annual return champion.
The Real World Assets (RWA) sector ranks third with an average annual return of 819.5%. This sector performed steadily at the beginning of the year, reaching a return of 365.3% by April 12, and then consolidated over the next six months. In November, driven by the price increase of MANTRA (OM), the RWA sector restarted its upward trend.
Layer 1, DePIN, and DeFi sectors performed modestly.
Layer 1, Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN), and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) sectors had similar performances in 2024, recording returns of 142.5%, 135.4%, and 101.4%, respectively. This means that Layer 1 and DePIN marginally outperformed Bitcoin's return of 125.5% during the same period, while the DeFi sector's performance even fell short of Bitcoin's.
In other words, conservative investors who only hold Bitcoin can achieve returns comparable to at least three major narrative themes.
The Game and Layer 2 sectors performed poorly.
GameFi and Layer 2 became the worst-performing sectors in 2024, even lagging behind Ethereum's increase of 49.0%. Specifically, the GameFi sector only rose by 14.7% during the year, with six out of the top ten game tokens experiencing declines ranging from 3.1% to 32.9%.
Layer 2 is the only sector to record negative returns this year, falling by 20.7%. Amid a trend of projects seeking to launch their own Layer 2 solutions, seven of the top ten Layer 2 tokens saw price declines ranging from 6.3% to 75.3%.
The Most Profitable Crypto Narratives
Performance of cryptocurrency narratives in 2024, ranked by the average annual price return of their top 10 tokens:
