Author: Vince Quill, CoinTelegraph; Translated by: Wuzhu, Golden Finance
The most profitable sectors in the cryptocurrency industry for the first half of 2024 have been revealed, with meme coins and emerging industries accounting for the largest share of profits.
According to data from BitEye, Coingecko and Wu Blockchain, Memecoin leads the competition with a return of 1,834% since the beginning of 2024. In second place is the real-world asset tokenization sector, which has brought investors a return of 214%. Artificial intelligence blockchain projects have a return of 72%, while the decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) has a return of 59%.
Digital asset staples Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to perform well, with Ethereum up 50% year to date and Bitcoin returning around 45%.
Furthermore, the average return for Layer 1 platforms is 43%, while industries such as gaming and decentralized finance lag behind their competitors but still achieve modest returns of 19% and 3% respectively. However, the Layer 2 industry has seen a significant decline, with total losses averaging around 41%.
Profitability breakdown by sector. Source: BitEye, Wu Blockchain
Meme Mania
The rapid rise of memes can be attributed in part to the Solana network. In May, 541,000 new token projects were minted on the Solana blockchain alone. Celebrities and influencers such as Andrew Tate, rapper Lil Pump, and Iggy Azalea have flocked to the network to launch their memes. Many of these projects have been accused of insider trading activities and, in some cases, pump and dump schemes.
Solana’s architecture and focus on user-friendly features that simplify token and smart contract deployment has earned the network a reputation as the MacOS of blockchains, a title bestowed upon Solana by Pantera Capital.
Tokenization of real-world assets
No industry analysis would be complete without addressing the burgeoning real-world asset tokenization sector, which has become a favorite topic for institutional investors and banks.
As global investment funds, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and even real estate migrate on-chain, the tokenization of real-world assets is widely seen as the next frontier for digital assets that could ultimately encompass $874 trillion in wealth.
Projects like Chainlink continue to make progress in bringing the world’s assets to the blockchain and new partnerships are being formed to prioritize the digitization of wealth through distributed ledger technology.
