Original text: Coingecko.
Translated by: Yuliya, PANews.
(Top 10 leading projects in 2024: highest surge over 230 times, 7 Meme coins made the list) This analysis has attracted widespread attention. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the development trends in the cryptocurrency market, this study analyzed the 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 10 tokens in each narrative theme, the average returns relative to the beginning of the year (or the first trading day) were calculated. The study selected representative tokens with high market capitalization at the end of the period and excluded specific blockchain ecosystems and areas with high overlap with other themes. The results showed significant differences in annual returns across different narrative themes, ranging from -20.7% to +2,939.8%.
AI and Meme coins lead the market.
The most outstanding cryptocurrency narrative theme in 2024 is the AI sector, with an average increase of 2,939.8% year-to-date (YTD). Following closely is the Meme coin sector, which achieved a yield of 2,185.1% in 2024. The returns from these two sectors far exceed those of other popular narrative themes by more than double.
The Meme coin sector started to lead significantly from March, with monthly yields soaring 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 saw a strong rebound at the end of the year, with December yields nearly doubling from 1,598.1% to 2,939.8%. This was primarily driven by explosive growth from the AI agent platform Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), which also became the token with the largest increase in the cryptocurrency market in 2024. Ultimately, the AI sector surpassed Meme coins by the end of December, becoming the annual yield champion.
The Real World Assets (RWA) sector ranks third with an annual average return of 819.5%. This sector performed robustly at the beginning of 2024, reaching a yield of 365.3% by April 12, and then consolidated for the next 6 months until November, when the RWA sector restarted its upward trend driven by the rise in the price of MANTRA (OM).
Layer 1, DePIN, and DeFi sectors performed moderately.
Layer 1, decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN), and decentralized finance (DeFi) sectors performed similarly in 2024, recording returns of 142.5%, 135.4%, and 101.4% respectively. This means that Layer 1 and DePIN slightly outperformed Bitcoin's concurrent increase of 125.5%, while the performance of the DeFi sector even lagged behind Bitcoin.
In other words, conservative investors can achieve returns comparable to at least 3 major narrative themes simply by holding Bitcoin.
GameFi and Layer 2 sectors performed poorly.
GameFi and Layer 2 became the worst-performing sectors in 2024, even below Ethereum's 49.0% increase. Specifically, the GameFi sector only rose 14.7% during the year; among the top 10 gaming tokens, 6 experienced declines ranging from 3.1% to 32.9%.
Layer 2 was the only sector to record negative returns in 2024, down 20.7%. Amid a trend where various projects are seeking to launch their own Layer 2 solutions, 7 of the top 10 Layer 2 tokens saw price declines ranging from 6.3% to 75.3%.
The most profitable crypto narratives in 2024.
The performance of cryptocurrency narratives in 2024, ranked by the average annual price return of their top 10 tokens:
(The above content is excerpted and reprinted with permission from partner PANews, original text link.)
Disclaimer: The article only represents the author's personal views and opinions, and does not represent the views and positions of Blockcast. All content and opinions are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investors should make their own decisions and trades, and the author and Blockcast will not bear any responsibility for any direct or indirect losses incurred by investors' trades.
"What are the 'most profitable crypto narratives' in 2024? Research: AI and Meme coins surged over 20 times." This article was first published on (Blockcast).