Author: Lim Yu Qian, CoinGecko; Translated by: Deng Tong, Jinse Finance
What are the most popular cryptocurrency narratives of 2024?
So far, the most popular cryptocurrency narrative of 2024 is the meme coin narrative, which attracted a total of 30.67% of global investor interest from major meme coin narratives and 25 meme coin trends. In other words, as the market rapidly expands from dog-related meme coins to other animal and personality-themed meme coins, nearly one-third of cryptocurrency narrative interest this year is focused on more speculative opportunities rather than fundamental value.
Specifically, the main meme coin narrative ranks first with a 14.36% share of cryptocurrency narrative interest. This is an increase of 6.04 percentage points compared to last year's meme coin narrative interest share of 8.32%.
In addition to the overall meme coin narrative, four meme coin trends successfully entered the top 20 cryptocurrency narratives: Solana meme coins ranked 4th with a narrative interest share of 7.65%, Base meme coins ranked 11th with a share of 2.13%, AI meme coins ranked 15th with a share of 1.49%, and cat-themed meme coins ranked 16th with a share of 1.19%.
AI-related narratives attracted 16% of investor interest.
Another popular cryptocurrency narrative in 2024 is the artificial intelligence (AI) narrative, which accounts for a total of 15.67% of investor interest across the entire AI narrative and five other AI-related narratives.
This year, the overall popularity of AI ranked second, accounting for 12.58% of investor interest. Although this represents an increase of 1.26 percentage points compared to last year's interest share of 11.32%, the popularity of AI narratives still declined compared to meme coin narratives.
In addition to the overall AI narrative and AI meme coin trends, the AI agent narrative also entered the top 20 with a 1.17% share of investor interest.
RWA and DePIN are gaining attention.
Compared to the previous year, other popular cryptocurrency narratives that received more attention in 2024 are real-world assets (RWA) and DePIN narratives.
The share of investor interest in RWA increased by 2.16 percentage points, rising from 6.48% in 2023 to 8.64% in 2024. As a result, its popularity ranking rose from sixth to third. Similarly, the popularity ranking of the DePIN narrative increased from 13th to 8th, with its share of investor interest increasing by 1.56 percentage points.
On the other hand, the popularity of the GameFi narrative has declined, with its share of investor interest dropping from 10.49% in 2023 to 3.72% in 2024, a decrease of 6.77 percentage points.
Interest in narratives related to Solana and Base is increasing day by day.
Narratives related to Solana attracted a total of 14.30% of investor interest, ranking just behind AI narratives in popularity. Although Solana meme coins drew nearly half of the attention, investors remain interested in the broader Solana ecosystem, which ranks fifth with 5.78% of investor interest. The narrative of Pump.fun itself accounted for only 0.61% of investor interest, which may reflect its overlap with the Solana meme coin narrative.
Meanwhile, as the popularity of the blockchain increases, two Base-related narratives also made it into the top 20 this year. Overall, the narratives of the Base ecosystem and Base meme coins accounted for 4.87% of investor interest.
Overall, 5 out of 67 blockchain ecosystems made it into the top 20 cryptocurrency narratives of 2024. In addition to Solana and Base, these popular blockchain ecosystem narratives also include the Ethereum ecosystem (with an investor interest share of 1.82%), the Sui ecosystem (1.04%), and the TON ecosystem (0.85%).
The most popular cryptocurrency narratives of 2024
The top 20 most popular cryptocurrency narratives of 2024 (ranked by market share of annual investor interest) are as follows:
Among the 200 different cryptocurrency narratives that received attention this year, the top 20 cryptocurrency narratives accounted for a total of 78.72% of global investor interest. The remaining 21.28% of cryptocurrency narrative interest is distributed among 180 narratives.
The most popular cryptocurrency narratives of 2023
Ranked by investor interest share from January 1 to December 21, 2023, the 15 most popular cryptocurrency narratives of 2023 are:
