November 2024 Blockchain Research Report
Author: Stella L (stella@footprint.network)
Data Source: Footprint Analytics Blockchain Research Page
In November 2024, the blockchain industry finally welcomed a "bull market" trend, with Bitcoin continuously hitting new price highs and about to break through the important $100,000 mark, while its market capitalization surpassed that of major traditional assets like silver. Meanwhile, Ethereum also achieved a strong recovery, and Altcoins saw significant rebounds. While Bitcoin's Layer 2 maintained strong growth, facing increasingly fierce competition, Ethereum's Layer 2 growth was relatively moderate.
The data in this report comes from the Blockchain Research page of Footprint Analytics, which provides an easy-to-use dashboard containing the most critical statistics and metrics in the blockchain field, and is updated in real-time.
Market Overview
The cryptocurrency market set a new record in November, with Bitcoin surging remarkably, from $69,386 to $96,427, a gain of 39.0%. Ethereum followed closely, rising 47.8% from $2,511 to $3,711. Bitcoin's outstanding performance has made its market capitalization surpass silver and Saudi Aramco, and it ranked seventh among global assets as it approached the $100,000 mark on November 23.
Data Source: Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Trends
The results of the US election have become a catalyst for the growth of the cryptocurrency market, which may have an impact on comprehensive cryptocurrency legislation and regulatory oversight. The market reacted positively to this, particularly reflected in the performance of memecoins, decentralized artificial intelligence (deAI) projects, and decentralized science (DeSci) sectors.
The broader financial market also performed strongly. The financial sector led the stock market rally under the expectation of US tax reform and deregulation. However, there was some volatility in international markets, with the renminbi under pressure due to concerns about potential US tariff increases, while gold prices fell as election-related uncertainties subsided.
Layer 1
In November 2024, the total blockchain market capitalization surged 41.1% to $2.8 trillion. While Bitcoin maintained a dominant 68.1% share, down from 70.1% in October, as Altcoins also performed strongly this month. Ethereum reversed its downward trend, with its market share reaching 15.9% (an absolute increase of 0.6%), while Solana surpassed the BNB Chain, reaching a 4.0% share.
Against the backdrop of Bitcoin continuously setting new price records, Altcoins have shown outstanding performance. Stellar (XLM) led the way with a 466.8% gain, followed by Hedera (HBAR) up 269.7%, Cardano (ADA) up 201.5%, and Polkadot (DOT) up 130.7%. The significant surge of Stellar likely reflects the market's growing attention to its cross-border remittance infrastructure and CBDC capabilities, which may be influenced by the expected clarification of the regulatory framework after the US election.
Data Source: Blockchain Token Prices and Market Capitalization
The DeFi sector's TVL grew 43.0% in November to $90.8 billion. Ethereum led the growth with a 61.6% increase, while Tron and Solana ranked second and third, respectively. Although the majority of the top 15 chains by TVL saw growth, Polygon declined by 5.9% due to capital outflows from Polymarket after the US presidential election. The downward trend of TON since October continued, due to the weakening momentum of Telegram games and meme activities.
Data Source: Blockchain TVL
Blockchains built on the Move technology stack maintained strong growth momentum. Sui set new highs in token price and market capitalization, while also reaching a strategic partnership with the renowned financial institution Franklin Templeton. Aptos drove on-chain activity growth through its Meme launch platform Emojicoin. Meanwhile, Movement is about to launch its mainnet, with its testnet data looking very impressive: according to Movement Explorer, there are over 6.6 million accounts and 153 million transactions.
Stablecoins remain one of the central sectors. USDS, as the first major DeFi-native stablecoin, launched on Solana, while Ripple is reportedly about to receive NYDFS approval for RLUSD. As the influence of stablecoins continues to grow, the industry is watching whether some companies will issue their own blockchains. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino tweeted that the company will remain neutral and not launch its own blockchain, responding to industry concerns.
Bitcoin Layer 2 & Sidechains
In November 2024, Bitcoin Layer 2 and sidechains saw significant growth, with a total TVL of $2.4 billion, up 34.6% from October. The competition for Bitcoin liquidity among the major platforms has intensified.
Core strengthened its market leadership, with TVL growing 55.7% to $890 million, expanding its market share to 37.4%. This growth was driven by the Fusion upgrade in November, which introduced dual staking and liquid Bitcoin staking (LstBTC), allowing users to earn higher yields while maintaining liquidity on Core's BTCfi platform.
Bitlayer maintained the second position with a TVL of $580 million, but its market share declined to 24.4%. BSquared continued to grow, increasing 53.1% month-over-month to a TVL of $260 million, rising to third place, while Rootstock ranked fourth with a TVL of $240 million.
Data Source: Bitcoin Ecosystem Blockchain TVL
At the BTCfi project level, Pell Network has become the leader with a TVL of $400 million, followed by the strong performance of Avalon Finance (Bitlayer and Core) and DeSyn (Bitlayer) across multiple chains, each with a TVL of over $200 million.
Ethereum Layer 2
In November 2024, the total TVL (standardized bridge portion) of Ethereum Layer 2 solutions reached $27.5 billion, an increase of 2.0% from October, continuing to lag behind the growth rate of Bitcoin scaling solutions.
Data source: Ethereum Layer 2 Overview - Rollups (Bridge-related Metrics) in November 2024
Arbitrum One maintained its leading position, with a TVL of $11.3 billion and a market share of 41.0%, while Base surpassed Optimism to take second place, with a TVL of $5.1 billion and a share of 18.6%, thanks to the surge in activity driven by the Clanker social meme deployment platform and the Virtuals Protocol AI agent creation and deployment platform based on Farcaster. Meanwhile, Optimism's market share fell to 17.3%.
Starknet TVL grew by 5.1%, surpassing Blast to rank fourth, while Blast continued to decline, down 14.5%. Starknet's growth was driven by the launch of STRK staking on November 26 and CEO Eli Ben Sasson's promise of a significant performance boost in the next quarter. Meanwhile, World Chain performed well, with TVL growing 131.4% to $570 million.
In November, the Ethereum Foundation, under public scrutiny, strengthened its financial transparency by releasing its 2024 report, outlining its core values and funding strategy. Vitalik Buterin emphasized Ethereum's future development, including the implementation of DAS to enhance Layer 2 scalability, and infrastructure improvements to support a diverse range of applications from ENS to consumer payments.
Blockchain Gaming Mainnet
In November, the number of active blockchain games grew by 4.6% to 1,696, with BNB Chain, Polygon and Ethereum maintaining their market leadership in game distribution, with shares of 20.9%, 15.4% and 13.4%, respectively.
The user engagement landscape has seen new changes, with opBNB, Ronin and Nebula (SKALE) leading with average daily active users (DAU) of 1.8 million, 900,000 and 400,000, respectively. OpBNB's DAU grew by 46.1%, driven by SERAPH: In The Darkness and MEET48, as well as the migration of some games from BNB Chain to opBNB. Meanwhile, Ronin has shown a strong recovery, with the launch of the new game Fableborne and the resurgence of Lumiterra.
Data source: Percentage of active blockchain games on different chains
Games based on Telegram have shown mixed results. While the TON ecosystem is facing challenges, with DAU declining 41.9% to 116,400, Sui has bucked the trend, with DAU growing 23.1% to 233,300, mainly due to the success of BIRDS and its significant user retention metrics.
Data source: BIRDS game new user weekly retention rate
For more data insights, please refer to the "Blockchain Gaming Report for November 2024: The Breakthrough Path of GameFi under the Bull Market".
Financing Situation
In November 2024, the blockchain industry recorded 12 financing events, with a total amount of $79.8 million, a decrease of 23.3% from October, the lowest monthly figure since August. Five of the events did not disclose the specific financing amount.
Blockchain Financing Events in November 2024 (Data source: crypto-fundraising.info)
Zero Gravity Labs (0G Labs) became the largest recipient of financing this month, announcing a $40 million seed round and a $250 million token purchase commitment. The company has pivoted from its initial positioning as a modular blockchain provider to a crypto AI startup, developing a decentralized AI operating system (dAIOS) for building AI applications on-chain.
Several Layer 1 blockchains received financing this month, including Cytonic, Pharos, Talus Network, EtraPay and Datalayer. Notably, AvaCloud, a custodial blockchain service provider built by Ava Labs, acquired EtraPay, gaining a team of renowned privacy technology experts and an innovative encrypted token standard, Encrypted ERC (eERC).
The Layer 2 ecosystem continued to see active investment, with six projects receiving new rounds of financing, including the Bitcoin Layer 2 projects Bitfinity and Lnfi Network, the Ethereum Layer 2 projects Heurist and Corn, as well as other Layer 2 projects Akave and AgentLayer.
The content of this article is for industry research and communication purposes only and does not constitute any investment advice. The market has risks, and investments should be made with caution.
