The cryptocurrency industry had a remarkable year in 2024, marked by rising coin prices and impressive growth for certain chains. However, the number of active users on these networks didn’t quite keep pace with the price hikes. According to a report from blockchain growth platform Flipside, there was a clear need for networks to focus on attracting both quantity and quality on-chain activity in order to bring in new users and turn them into valuable contributors.
While some chains, like Bitcoin, struggled to maintain their growth or attract new users throughout the year, others like Base and Ethereum saw impressive gains in both user count and activity levels. For example, Base’s monthly acquired users increased by a whopping 56 times this year alone, reaching an all-time high of 19.4 million in October.
This growth can largely be attributed to the success of its layer-2 solution, which allows for faster and cheaper transactions on top of the base layer network. In terms of user activity levels, Base also had a strong showing, attracting 15.1 million super users who executed over 100 decentralized finance (DeFi) transactions each month.
This number was 38.4% higher than the second-highest contributing chain, Ethereum, which had 10.7 million super users. While Ethereum didn’t quite match Base’s user growth numbers, it did see impressive gains in its own right, particularly when compared to its layer-2 competitors like Arbitrum and Optimism.
Institutional acceptance of cryptocurrencies and major developments like Grayscale listing several new cryptos as “assets under consideration” likely played a role in driving growth across certain chains this year. However, there were still some notable exceptions where growth remained stagnant or even declined.
For instance, Bitcoin’s acquired users only increased by around 935,900 monthly despite the historic price rally and launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US. This suggests that much of the growth may have been driven by speculation rather than new user adoption. Overall, the findings from Flipside’s report highlight both the opportunities and challenges facing the cryptocurrency industry today.
As we move forward into 2025 and beyond, it will be interesting to see how networks continue to innovate and adapt in order to attract and retain valuable users in a highly competitive marketplace.
Source
