According to PANews, a recent analysis of the 2024 cryptocurrency market reveals significant disparities in annual returns across various narrative themes. The study, based on CoinGecko's market data, examined the performance of top tokens from January 1 to December 29, 2024, calculating their average returns relative to the beginning of the year. The analysis excluded specific blockchain ecosystems and overlapping themes, highlighting a range of annual returns from -20.7% to +2,939.8%.
The AI sector emerged as the standout performer, with a year-to-date (YTD) average increase of 2,939.8%. Meme coins followed closely, achieving a 2,185.1% return. These two sectors outperformed other popular themes by more than double.
Meme coins saw a significant surge in March, with monthly returns skyrocketing from 96.6% to 1,713.1%. Despite high volatility, meme coins maintained the highest returns for most of 2024. However, after reaching a peak of 3,211.4% on December 9, the sector experienced a pullback as market interest waned.
In contrast, the AI sector experienced a strong rebound towards the end of the year, with December returns nearly doubling from 1,598.1% to 2,939.8%. This surge was largely driven by the explosive growth of the AI platform Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), which became the top-performing token of the year. By the end of December, the AI sector surpassed meme coins to become the annual leader in returns.
The Real World Assets (RWA) sector ranked third with an annual average return of 819.5%. It showed steady performance at the start of the year, reaching a 365.3% return by April 12, before stabilizing over the next six months. In November, the RWA sector resumed its upward trend, spurred by a price increase in MANTRA (OM).
Layer 1, Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN), and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) sectors showed moderate performance in 2024, with returns of 142.5%, 135.4%, and 101.4%, respectively. These sectors slightly outperformed Bitcoin's 125.5% gain, while DeFi lagged behind.
Conversely, GameFi and Layer 2 sectors underperformed, with returns falling short of Ethereum's 49.0% gain. GameFi saw a modest 14.7% increase, with six out of ten top gaming tokens experiencing declines between 3.1% and 32.9%. Layer 2 was the only sector to record negative returns, dropping 20.7%. Amidst a trend of projects launching their own Layer 2 solutions, seven out of ten top Layer 2 tokens saw price declines ranging from 6.3% to 75.3%.