In July , the cryptocurrency market was active and volatile, a phenomenon that reflected the overall trend of the global financial market. The listing of spot Ethereum ETP in the United States, coupled with former U.S. President Trump’s high praise for Bitcoin, both demonstrate the resilience and huge growth potential of the cryptocurrency industry.
The market situation is complex and changeable, the price of Bitcoin has gradually stabilized, and Solana has become one of the most outstanding currencies; at the same time, Ethereum has encountered a certain degree of downward pressure after the listing of ETP. Amid this fluctuation, the total market value of public chain cryptocurrencies has achieved a slight increase, mainly driven by key projects such as Bitcoin and Solana. As competition in the Layer 2 field becomes increasingly fierce, innovative projects and emerging forces are emerging that are reshaping the competitive landscape of the industry.
The data for this report comes from the public chain research page of Footprint Analytics. This page provides an easy-to-use dashboard that contains the most critical statistics and indicators for understanding the public chain field, and is updated instantly.
Crypto Market Overview
In July, volatility increased across financial markets. Big tech and AI-related stocks, which led gains in the first half, underperformed. The crypto industry has made important progress, including the launch of spot Ethereum exchange-traded products (ETPs) and the active endorsement of Bitcoin by US Republican presidential candidate and former President Trump.
Price performance in July showed a divergent trend. At the end of the month, the impact of the German government's sale of Bitcoin weakened (ending on July 13), and Mt Gox's repayment distribution to its users had a limited impact on the market. Although Bitcoin fluctuated during the month, it ended July with a small increase. In addition to Bitcoin, Solana's performance is particularly eye-catching, with an increase of 25% during the month.
In contrast, Ethereum prices fell after the launch of spot Ethereum ETPs in the US market. Although the launch of these ETPs supported Ethereum prices, subsequent selling pressure caused prices to fall.
Public chain overview
As of the end of July, the total market value of public chain cryptocurrencies increased by 1.2% from June to $1.98 trillion. The market leaders are Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain and Solana, with market shares of 64.8%, 19.7%, 4.3% and 4.1% respectively. Bitcoin’s share increased by 1.5% in absolute terms, Solana increased by 0.6%, and Ethereum decreased by 1.5%.
Data source: Market value share of public chain tokens in July 2024
The cryptocurrency market experienced significant volatility in July. Bitcoin started at $62,923 at the beginning of the month and closed at $64,938 at the end of the month, achieving a growth of 3.2%. On July 5, Bitcoin hit a monthly low of $56,608, while on July 27 it reached a high of $68,806. Ethereum opened from $3,438 and fell to $3,243 at the end of the month, a drop of 5.7%. On July 7, Ethereum hit its lowest price of the month at $2,939, and reached its highest price of $3,542 on July 21.
Source: Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Trends
Solana’s token price increased by 18.2%, and its market capitalization increased by 18.9%. The craze for meme coins continues, with active on-chain activity. For example, several Neiro tokens surged after the Doge Memecoin-inspired owner announced the adoption of Neiro, a 10-year-old rescue Shiba Inu.
Kaspa continues to maintain strong performance, with the price of the token KAS rising by 14.5% and the market value increasing by 15.7%. KAS hit a new all-time high of over $0.20 in July. blockDAG (Block Directed Acyclic Graph) technology has received increasing attention, especially after Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital (MARA) announced last month that it would diversify its mining business and expand its suite to Kaspa.
Data source: Price and market value of public chain tokens at the end of July 2024
In terms of total locked value (TVL), the TVL of the public chain reached US$76.5 billion at the end of July, which was basically the same as in June. Ethereum, TRON, and BNB chains continue to lead in terms of TVL.
TON has become the fifth largest chain by token market value, but there is still a lot of room for growth in its DeFi field. Its TVL ranks ninth among public chains, at $770 million. Two decentralized exchanges, STON.fi and DeDust, account for more than 60% of TVL.
Core Blockchain’s TVL increased by 122.5% throughout the month, benefiting from the launch of the Dual Staking model. This model rewards users who stake Bitcoin in Core for an extended period of time, increasing their BTC staking rewards when they simultaneously stake CORE.
Data source: Public chain TVL at the end of July 2024
In a month of volatility and mixed price performance, Polymarket, the decentralized prediction market on Polygon, stands out. Polymarket allows users to build portfolios based on their predictions and earn returns if their predictions are correct.
Leveraging blockchain technology, Polymarket ensures transparent, secure and immutable transactions on a wide range of topics including current events, politics and public health issues. The US election brought additional attention to Polymarket, with its TVL doubling in July.
Development of major Layer 1 public chains in July 2024
BNB Chain
- On July 18, BNB Chain officially announced that it will hold a "Become a Champion Builder" hackathon in the third quarter of 2024, with a prize pool of more than $500,000.
- BNB Chain’s second Sunset fork plan has been completed.
Solana
- Solana launches $400,000 grant program for developers of Solana Actions and Blinks Tools.
NEAR
- Grayscale officially launched the decentralized artificial intelligence fund Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund LLC, of which Near is the highest weighted asset in the fund.
Sui
- Sui announced the launch of the Sui Indexing Framework, which provides customizable access to data on the Sui chain.
Polygon
- Polygon launches a new ZK proof system "Plonky3" as an open source toolkit, which will be more universal than "Plonky2".
- Move language developer Movement Labs joins Polygon's AggLayer.
Ronin
- Sky Mavis released a review of the first half of 2024. In the past 6 months, more than 3 million users have downloaded the Ronin wallet, and RON's daily active addresses have soared to a record high of 1.5 million.
Ton
- The TON blockchain will release a new Layer 2 network based on Polygon technology.
- The TON Foundation has partnered with Mocaverse, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, to launch a US$20 million ecological development plan.
Core
- Core announced that Animoca Brands has launched a verification node on the chain to support Core's security and decentralization.
- Core Foundation announces dual pledge model to increase Bitcoin staking returns.
Layer 2
In July, Ethereum Layer 2 experienced minor fluctuations as Ethereum prices retraced following the launch of spot Ethereum ETPs in the U.S. market. Arbitrum One, Optimism and Base lead in terms of TVL market share, holding 59.8%, 20.2% and 8.27% respectively, but all have monthly growth rates of less than 5%.
As on-chain activity declined after the airdrop ended, Blast’s TVL fell by 14.3% and zkSync Era TVL fell by 11.5%.
Scroll’s TVL grew by 13.2%, driven by activity on Scroll Canvas, a platform for collecting and displaying achievements, status, and on-chain certificates within the Scroll ecosystem. Users can interact with various projects in the ecosystem to earn achievements in the form of "badges."
Source: Ethereum Layer 2 Overview, July 2024 – Rollups (Bridge Related Indicators)
On the other hand, Bitcoin scaling solutions, including Layer 2 and sidechains, continued to grow in July, although the total TVL was lower than the June high. Merlin, Bitlayer and Rootstock account for the largest TVL market shares, with 44.0%, 19.6% and 10.3% respectively.
Solv Protocol became the largest DeFi protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem at the end of July, with a TVL of $570 million, accounting for 32.3% of the total TVL of Bitcoin scaling solutions.
Source: Bitcoin ecological public chain TVL
The Layer 2 circuit is becoming more and more competitive. A new project called TON Applications Chain (TAC) is developing a Layer 2 solution for the TON blockchain ecosystem. Backed by The Open Platform, an investor focused on the TON blockchain, TAC will utilize Polygon's Chain Development Kit (CDK).
At the same time, the first Move EVM Layer2 Movement blockchain launched the public test network Parthenon, which was officially launched on July 30. Movement’s MOVEDROP project allows the community to participate in the testnet to mainnet process.
Development of major Layer 2 public chains in July 2024
Arbitrum
- The Arbitrum community released a proposal to vote on "Allowing the deployment of new Orbit chains on any blockchain", planning to open the permission to deploy Orbit chains on networks outside of Ethereum.
Optimism
- Optimism announced the results of Retro Funding 4 and plans to provide 10 million OP rewards to 207 projects, of which Zora and Layer 3 each received 500,000 OP.
Starknet
- Eduard, founder of Starknet derivatives trading protocol ZKX, announced that ZKX will cease operations.
Base
- U.S. politicians can accept cryptocurrency donations on the Base chain.
Merlin Chain
- Merlin Chain joins hands with Ordzaar and OrdinSwap to launch the “Fourth Major Ordinal” whitelist event.
Rootstock
- Rootstock announced that it will host its first Ecosystem Summit on August 1st.
Blockchain games
In July, a total of 1,588 games were active on major blockchain networks. BNB Chain, Polygon and Ethereum dominate the market, accounting for 21.7%, 19.0% and 15.1% of the market share respectively.
Ronin, opBNB and Saakuru Verse lead in terms of on-chain DAU, with average daily DAU of 1.1 million, 479,600 and 354,500 respectively during the month. Their DAU market shares at the end of July were 32.6%, 18.7% and 3.4% respectively.
Data source: Number of daily active users of each public chain blockchain game
Ronin's DAU market share increased significantly from 18.6% on July 1 to 32.6% on July 31, driven by the recovery of Pixels data and the launch of new games Lumiterra and Fight League.
In addition, games on Ronin perform well in terms of user retention and frequently appear on the weekly new user retention rankings. For example, in the last week of July, five games were in the top ten for new user retention.
opBNB's DAU share rose from 13.1% to 18.7% in July, driven by the growing popularity of its games MEET48 and SERAPH: In The Darkness. In particular, SERAPH: In The Darkness, a dark fantasy ARPG game, has gained significant attention on opBNB since its launch in mid-July.
Oasys Layer 2 Saakuru Verse's DAU grew significantly in the last 10 days at the end of June, but growth slowed down in July, with its DAU market share falling from 14.1% at the beginning of the month to 3.4% at the end of the month. Despite this, Saakuru still maintains the third highest average DAU among all chains.
Saakuru's unique agency model, in which the chain operator (AAG) bears transaction costs, enables users and developers to complete interactions without incurring gas fees, significantly lowering the entry barrier.
Base's DAU soared from 8.2K to 222.5K in one month, with an average DAU of 101.6K. This growth was mainly driven by the game BLOCKLORDS Dynasty.
For more blockchain game industry trends, you can read the "July 2024 Blockchain Game Research Report: Challenges and Opportunities of Market Fluctuation and Data Differentiation" .
Financing situation
In July, the public chain industry recorded 9 rounds of financing events, totaling US$570 million, a 20.1% decrease from June. Two of the events had undisclosed amounts, and no Layer 1 announced new funding rounds.
Public chain financing events in July 2024 (Source: crypto-fundraising.info)
Igloo, the parent company of Pudgy Penguins, has raised $11 million in a funding round led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. Igloo has newly formed Cube Labs to develop Abstract, a consumer-oriented Layer 2 blockchain built on Matter Labs’ ZK Stack and EigenLayer’s EigenDA.
This new blockchain aims to make decentralized application development easier, cheaper and more secure.
As the number of Layer 2 solutions continues to grow, the infrastructure supporting these Layer 2 solutions is becoming a good business. In July, Ethereum Rollup deployment platform Caldera and Web3 AI infrastructure developer Network3 received new financing.
