After the crypto industry recovered from the bear market of 2023, 2024 has produced another positive year, with Bitcoin reaching new all-time highs and many indicators continuing to improve. From the impressive first year of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. to record stablecoin offerings, the recovery of DeFi, the ups and downs of SocialFi, and Polymarket betting driven by the U.S. elections, here are five charts to show how the industry has changed in 2024.
Impressive First Year of Bitcoin Spot ETFs in the U.S.
On January 11, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved proposals for 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs through an expedited process. ETFs from Ark Invest/21Shares, Bitwise, BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, Invesco, Valkyrie (now CoinShares), VanEck, and WisdomTree began trading the very next day. Another spot ETF from Hashdex and Grayscale's mini Bitcoin ETF were launched in March and July, respectively.
These funds have created one of the most successful ETF launches in history by many criteria, competing with some of the largest and most reputable ETF products in the world, including the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) and Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) of the Nasdaq-100 index. They attracted over $35 billion in net inflows, with about $103 billion in assets under management as the price of Bitcoin surged from around $42,000 on January 1 to nearly $100,000.
BlackRock's IBIT ETF dominated most metrics, with over $37 billion in net inflows and only 10 negative days throughout the year. Along with the growth of Bitcoin's price, IBIT reached $52 billion in assets under management and accounted for about 70% of market share in trading volume. However, spot Ethereum ETFs in the U.S., launched in July, have not been as successful as expected, with only about $2.6 billion in net inflows to date.
Stablecoin Supply Reaches New Heights
The circulating supply of USD-pegged stablecoins across issuers and blockchains has rebounded and reached new highs above $200 billion in 2024 — surpassing the previous peak in April 2022 before the bear market crisis collapsed companies and ecosystems like Terra, Celsius, and FTX.
Stablecoins have certainly found their fit in the product market, with over $5.1 trillion in global trading in the first half of this year. This figure compares to Visa's $6.5 trillion in the same period, plus an additional $3.1 trillion from stablecoin transactions in the third quarter. "We always say that cryptocurrency is on the verge of finding its quintessential application. And this is it," analysts wrote in the October report.
Major corporations like PayPal have now launched their own stablecoins, while Ripple, Revolut, and Robinhood are also looking to get involved. This technology is now being discussed at the highest levels of government, stablecoins are currently the 18th largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds alongside major sovereign nations, and payment giant Stripe recently confirmed its acquisition of stablecoin API company Bridge for $1.1 billion — the largest deal in cryptocurrency history. Stripe's deal alone demonstrated the usage and growth of stablecoins as a legitimate use case for public blockchain, according to analysts at research and brokerage firm Bernstein.
Tether continues to dominate the stablecoin market, accounting for about $140 billion, or 66% of the total stablecoin supply. Circle's USDC comes in second with over $43 billion, representing 20% of the supply, and Ethena's USDe ranks third with about $6 billion, accounting for 3% of the market.
In terms of blockchain support, Ethereum leads in supplying USDT, followed by Tron. Ethereum also leads in supplying USDC, with Solana, Arbitrum, and Base ranked second, third, and fourth, respectively.
"Among all the metrics that the crypto industry uses to measure adoption (e.g., number of active addresses, transactions on the network, TVL, etc.), the supply of stablecoins is perhaps the most relevant metric but often overlooked," analysts at Presto said in a November report. "While stablecoins have certainly emerged as a quintessential application of blockchain with a clear relevance to the real world, their current supply only accounts for 0.9% of the total USD money supply, indicating that we have only scratched the surface."
Solana Leads DeFi Fee Recovery
DeFi fees also saw a recovery by the end of 2024, peaking at over $53 million per day and $881 million per month in November, followed by $55 million per day and a record $893 million in December.
The Solana ecosystem was the main beneficiary, with trading volume on decentralized exchanges surpassing $100 billion each month in November — double that of Ethereum's main network at $55 billion, as SOL reached a record high of over $263 for the first time since 2021, before correcting.
Monthly fees generated from Solana-based platforms like Raydium, Jito, and Pump.fun all reached record highs in November, exceeding $211 million, $199 million, and $93 million, respectively, amid a surge in the number of active addresses on the blockchain. In that month, Uniswap accounted for a significant portion of DeFi fees on Ethereum, generating around $97 million, rising to over $152 million in December.
Eden Au, Director of Research at The Block, believes that this surge in activity is due to the memecoin frenzy combined with low transaction fees and user-friendliness of Solana, suggesting that this network is likely to continue attracting a large number of retail users in the coming year.
"We may be entering a bull market in 2025, as retail speculators seeking higher profits flock into the memecoin space as liquidity from the larger crypto market gradually flows down," Au said.
The Ups and Downs of SocialFi
SocialFi, a portmanteau of 'social' and 'finance', combines social networking with blockchain technology. It aims to reward users for posting high-quality content online and gives them more control over how their data is used.
The friend.tech platform, backed by Paradigm, once made waves by surpassing Ethereum's daily profit at one point, but has failed to replicate the surge of activity it generated in 2023, with trading declining sharply this year.
Friend.tech operates on the Layer 2 Base chain incubated by Coinbase, using 'keys' to represent tokenized versions of user profiles linked to their X accounts. Owning a user key on friend.tech allows access to that person's content and the ability to message them.
The platform saw a brief surge in activity in May before its token price dropped 20% after co-founder Racer hinted at leaving Base. Trading nearly went silent amid the crisis, and the team eventually abandoned the project and relinquished control of the smart contracts after stagnation in development in September. While the platform could theoretically continue to operate, the relinquishment of control made it impossible to deploy new features, except for forking the protocol to create something new.
The decentralized social protocol Farcaster, co-founded by former Coinbase executives Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan, had a more successful year, reaching a record high of 75,000 daily active users in May thanks to the success of features like embedded Frames, turning posts into interactive mini-apps and attracting some big names from the Ethereum community. However, it also saw a significant decline, with activity on the platform dropping about 70% from its peak in May.
Polymarket Betting Surges Ahead of the U.S. Elections
The decentralized prediction platform Polymarket, based on Polygon, had one of the most successful years in the cryptocurrency industry, with USDC-linked bets soaring ahead of the U.S. elections in November as international traders rushed to bet on the presidential election winner. (Theoretically, U.S. residents are restricted from using this platform but can bypass geographic blocks using a VPN).
After gradually attracting attention throughout 2024, Polymarket's monthly trading volume skyrocketed to $5 billion in October and November as the showdown between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris reached its peak.
Although this platform offered many markets related to the U.S. elections, including races in swing states and which party would control the entire House and Senate, the winner of the presidential race was the most popular market, accounting for over $3 billion in trading on Election Day alone.
The number of active traders on the platform also increased along with the growth of trading volume, reaching a record high of over 300,000 in November and continuing to rise to over 346,000 in December.
Polymarket's open contracts also reached a record $569 million on November 6, with $287 million solely from the presidential election results, before dropping to the $200 million to $300 million range as activity slowed after the elections.
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