It seems that the crypto industry had a remarkable year in 2024 with rising coin prices, but on-chain activity wasn’t as impressive across most relevant chains. According to a report by Flipside, there was a need for networks to provide both quantity and quality on-chain activity to attract users and turn them into valuable contributors.
While some networks like Base, a layer-2 network launched by Coinbase, experienced exponential growth in user count for 2024, others like Bitcoin and some Ethereum-based layer-2 chains struggled to maintain their growth or even attract new users throughout the year. Interestingly, Base took the lead in terms of user growth, with its monthly acquired users increasing by 56 times this year despite a slow start in January.
In fact, in October 2024, the number of newly acquired users on the network reached a record high of 19.4 million, with Base contributing 13.7 million users – almost eight times more than the second-highest contributor, Polygon. Additionally, Base also saw impressive growth in its super users who executed over 100 decentralized finance (DeFi) transactions, reaching 15.1 million in October – 38.4% more than the next chain, Ethereum, which had 10.7 million super users.
Ethereum also performed well, with its average of 1.56 million acquired users per month surpassing its layer-2 networks Arbitrum and Optimism. Furthermore, Ethereum had the highest number of DeFi-related super users at 10.9 million, significantly higher than Arbitrum and Optimism’s respective 6.2 million and 1.8 million user counts.
However, Bitcoin’s acquired users only grew by 935,900 monthly despite its historic price surge above $100,000 and the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US. Interestingly, Bitcoin’s acquired users increased by 19.2% during its major rally in March but then dropped by 28.5% during the post-US election rally in November.
Moreover, Uniswap maintained and expanded its dominance across major chains, particularly on Base and Ethereum.
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