Binance Research released the 2024 H1 Report, following the strong performance in 2023, the total market value of cryptocurrencies continued to climb in the first half of 2024, reaching approximately $2.27 trillion, an increase of 37.3% year-to-date. The first quarter saw an astonishing increase of 60.2%. Although the market fell back in the second quarter, the market value fell by 14.3%.
Layer-1 (“L1”) projects have performed well this year. Bitcoin continues to dominate the market after its fourth halving, the launch of the Runes protocol, and the approval of the US spot ETF. Ethereum re-staking activity surged and the EIP-4844 upgrade was carried out. BNB Chain promoted the development of opBNB and Greenfield, and Solana performed well in the meme coin field and launched blockchain links (“Blinks”).
The Layer-2 ("L2") space ushered in an airdrop season in the first half of 2024, especially for zero-knowledge ("zk") projects. Incentives brought in a large amount of funds, bringing the total locked value of L2 chains to $43 billion, an increase of 90% in half a year.
Decentralized finance ("DeFi") attracted a large amount of capital in 2024, with the total locked value increasing from $54.4 billion at the beginning of the year to $94.1 billion, an increase of 72.8%. Almost all markets in the DeFi field benefited, including mainstream and niche markets, promoting the emergence of multiple protocols.
The stablecoin market has rebounded significantly and is now only 14.5% away from the peak before the TerraUSD (UST) crash in April 2022. As of June 30, 2024, the stablecoin market capitalization reached $161 billion, a two-year high. Tether's USDT still dominates the market, but Circle's USDC and Ethena's USDDe have gained market share.
The NFT market experienced turbulence in the first half of the year, with sales falling and major projects' reserve prices falling by more than 50%. Blur continued to dominate, driven by the Blast token airdrop, while Pudgy Penguins' physical toys achieved some success. Bitcoin NFTs also performed well.
SocialFi continues to develop, Lens Protocol announced that it will launch the zero-knowledge chain Lens Network. Farcaster users continue to grow after the launch of Frames, friend.tech released its own token and V2 version, and Fantasy.top collectible card game also attracted much attention.
The Web3 gaming sector had a strong first quarter, but the market value of project tokens fell sharply in the second quarter. However, user growth indicators are healthy, and projects such as Pixels and Hamster Kombat have attracted a large number of players through token airdrops.
Additionally, memecoins, artificial intelligence (AI), and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) continue to attract strong interest from investors and the community in the first half of 2024.
The six key themes for the second half of 2024 are exciting to look forward to, and it is expected that these themes will cover multiple aspects and fields this year, such as the macro environment, the Bitcoin ecosystem, ownership economic applications, real-world assets ("RWA"), etc.
