The New Year is approaching. In the last week of 2024, Foresight News will use a series of must-read articles at the end of the year to take everyone back to 2024 and look forward to 2025. See the past to know the future.
By Alex Liu, Foresight News
"Trend" is the background behind the keywords of 2024. These keywords not only condense the core development of the crypto industry this year, but also point out the direction for the future market. Reading this year's annual keywords can help us better understand the industry and grasp the trends.
Bitcoin: An Expanding Narrative
2024 is the year of Bitcoin. Spot ETFs were approved, and the price of Bitcoin broke the $100,000 mark for the first time... In addition to setting new highs in price, the rise of inscriptions, runes, BTCFi, Bitcoin NFTs, and Bitcoin L2 has enriched the narrative of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is gradually developing from a simple value storage tool to a diversified ecosystem that includes art, games, finance, and smart contracts.
New grand narratives such as Trump, the first US President to openly support cryptocurrency, and the "Bitcoin National Strategic Reserve" may send Bitcoin to heights we can't imagine.
Recommended reading:
- First time in the UK! BTC is being included in the portfolio of pension funds? Pension funds, the mysterious unicorns of institutional investors, the end of the rainbow that HODLers long for.
- Why can Bitcoin reach $100,000 per coin? Why is $100,000 still just the starting point for Bitcoin?
ETF: Is this where traditional capital enters the market?
In 2024, the approval of the spot Bitcoin ETF became a signal of excitement for the market, setting the tone for the bull market (at least the Bitcoin bull market) . The active applications of financial giants such as BlackRock and WisdomTree have brought incremental funding expectations for Bitcoin and other crypto assets, clearing the way for retail investors and institutions to enter the market. In July, the Ethereum spot ETF was approved, and the president of The ETF Store said that the Solana ETF is expected to be approved by the end of next year at the latest. Several institutions have also applied for the XRP spot ETF.
The launch of ETFs is not only expected to increase the participation of institutional investors, but also further connect the crypto market with traditional finance, marking Wall Street's deeper acceptance of digital assets.
Recommended reading:
- SOL hits a new high. Can the “King of Meme Chain” become the third spot ETF?
- Bitwise: Institutions are increasing their holdings against the market trend, and Bitcoin ETFs are growing rapidly . The institutional adoption of Bitcoin ETFs is faster than any ETF in history.
- The undervalued "Ethereum Spot ETF" surpasses the "Bitcoin ETF", and the Ethereum ETF is gaining more favor from traditional institutions.
Trump: The first president to support the crypto industry
At the beginning of 2024, many people would not have thought that this year the Republican Party would turn to the crypto industry in order to draw a line with the Democratic Party. From being the first major party presidential candidate in the United States to publicly support Bitcoin to his final election, Trump has always emphasized his "crypto-friendly" policies, hoping to build the United States into a "cryptocurrency center". He also participated in the "Bitcoin Conference" unprecedentedly and said "Never sell your Bitcoin", and was called the "Bitcoin President" by the industry.
After his election, various favorable regulatory policies were issued frequently, triggering positive market reactions.
- How much will Trump's net worth increase if he returns to the White House? For Trump, power is more important than money.
- Trump enters the White House again, BTC hits a record high! On the afternoon of November 6th, Beijing time, Trump was elected as the next president of the United States.
- On the cover of Time! A comprehensive review of Trump concept coins "Trump trading" remains hot. Before the inauguration in January, do these Trump targets still have room for growth?
Airdrops: Paradigm shift, increased difficulty
Airdrops are still a hot topic throughout the year. Looking back at the whole year, from Starknet and Celestia at the beginning of the year to Dymension and Saga in the middle of the year and ZKsync, EIGEN, Movement, and PENGU at the end of the year, the airdrop track has lived up to every "airdrop farmer" who has calmed down and worked hard to interact.
However, the rise of the points system has caused a major paradigm shift in the airdrop track. From earning tokens by interacting to a points system that is beneficial for large-capital players to deposit money, airdrops seem to be undergoing a paradigm shift from PoW (proof of work) to PoS (proof of stake). The attribute of grassroots counterattack is weakening, and more stories of the rich getting richer are emerging.
Recommended reading:
- Gold Rush Manual | Which potential stablecoin deposit airdrop is the best ? Every flow will bring considerable value
- Gold Rush Manual | Eclipse Ecosystem Outlook and Airdrop Guide Eclipse mainnet is coming soon, how is the ecological development? How to plan airdrop opportunities?
- "Organic growth point" or "top PUA", what are the advantages and disadvantages of the point incentive model? In the current fierce competition in the encryption field, point incentives are becoming a treasure for conquering cities and territories.
Solana: The King Returns, the Main Battleground for Retail Investors
Solana once fell into a trough after the FTX crash, with the price of the coin falling to as low as $8. However, 2024 is the year of Solana's return to glory. At the end of the year, SOL broke through $260, setting a record high, stimulated by the possible positive impact of spot ETFs. Looking back on the whole year, the airdrop of Jupiter on January 31 brought a considerable wealth effect to Solana ecosystem users and ignited the ecosystem.
As the starting point of the meme craze, it is almost inevitable that Pump.fun will happen on Solana - the best meme, Degen culture, the best retail liquidity, and the DEX trading volume on Solana has exceeded the DEX trading volume on Ethereum many times. BONK, WIF, POPCAT, BOME, BAN, almost all the large MC memecoin this year have happened on Solana.
In addition to Meme, Solana has also made great progress in other development directions: re-staking on Solana, modular L2, stablecoin innovation, and more.
Recommended reading:
- Exploring Solana Ecosystem Innovation — Dialogue with Radar Hackathon MCM Winning Team The Solana Radar Hackathon winners list has been announced. What are the winning projects? What are these winning projects doing and how will they develop in the future?
- A look at the dark horse project of Solana ZK privacy ecosystem From the release of ZK compression to the launch of various system calls in the future, the importance of ZK to Solana cannot be underestimated.
- Binance invests in a new project, is the Solana stablecoin project Perena worth participating in? A new force has been added to the stablecoin track, how to participate in Perena?
Modularity: The future of blockchain architecture
Looking back: The strong pull-up of TIA token from US$3 to US$20 at the beginning of the year has brought the modular track to the forefront in a short, flat and fast manner.
The rapid development of modular blockchains emphasizes the design concept of separating data availability (DA), execution layer, and consensus layer. This architecture allows developers to build application chains more flexibly, opening up new possibilities for blockchain technology.
The market share of DA provided by Celestia has now exceeded that of Ethereum mainnet. Avail and EigenDA are being adopted by more and more emerging projects. The modularization trend of blockchain architecture is imperative . Projects such as Dymension and Saga may be worth paying attention to.
Recommended reading:
- Exclusive interview with Fuel's Chief Growth Officer: Breaking through the boundaries of modularity, all chains will be modularized in the future . In the future of a modular world, DeFi will become more accessible and efficient, with lightning-fast transactions and low costs, thereby promoting greater financial inclusion.
- Modularity cools down? These key advances are creating change The next decade of innovative applications will be built on modular tracks.
Re-staking: TVL Doll
Re-staking is the keyword of Ethereum ecosystem this year. Re-staking protocols represented by EigenLayer optimize capital efficiency by allowing users to use pledged assets for verification work on multiple chains or multiple protocols. When ALT L1 such as Solana continued to be popular and large MC memecoin Memes were flying all over the sky, it was LRTfi based on EigenLayer that stabilized the Ethereum ecosystem and absorbed a large amount of TVL, allowing users to look forward to future excess returns and keep their funds and confidence in Ethereum.
Staking, re-staking - TVL nesting dolls. In the first half of 2024, the major re-staking protocols and liquidity re-staking protocols used the points system and airdrop expectations to compete for TVL, but real re-staking applications were rare . Ethereum users' Ethereum is trapped by various staking protocols, while Solana users' SOL lies in their wallets as ammunition, which is active money. In a sense, it has caused the EVM ecosystem to have unfavorable liquidity in the Meme track.
Recommended reading:
- Re-understanding the potential of EigenLayer re-staking: Breaking the boundaries of trust EigenLayer is not just a system for re-staking to earn extra income.
- Can the re-staking upstart Karak shake the dominance of EigenLayer? As a rising star in re-staking, is Karak's data growth a false prosperity or the result of long-term ecological construction? Can it shake the dominance of EigenLayer with the advantages of multi-chain and multi-asset re-staking?
- Exploring re-staking: Symbiotic, Karak, EigenLayer Overview Concept Introduction + Multi-dimensional Project Comparison
Memes: The Financialization of Culture
If there really is a so-called "super cycle" for Meme coin, then 2024 must be its beginning.
The influence of Meme Coin will continue to spread in 2024. Memes are not only a symbol of community drive, but also a carrier of cross-cultural communication. The unique narrative and high volatility allow speculators and creators to find resonance, while giving the crypto market the ability to financialize all cultures .
The launch of Pump.fun has completely changed the way Meme is played. The myth of getting rich overnight and making hundreds or thousands of times more money attracts a steady stream of retail investors to enter the market, reflecting that people would rather play PvP in crypto casinos than take over VC tokens with low circulation and high FDV (full circulation market value) . However, the chosen ones are always a minority. The ridiculously low token graduation rate and the proportion of profitable users of Pump.fun seem to indicate that retail investors can only be harvested by conspiracy groups and insider traders in another way.
Recommended reading:
- The 48-hour Meme experiment co-created by MetaMask has no roadmap, no development plan, only thoughts on this experiment.
- clanker, the "explosive meme maker" on Base, integrates the three hot spots of AI Agent, meme platform, and Web3 social networking. Will clanker surpass pump.fun?
Telegram: A new narrative for social platforms
Telegram is becoming an important player in Web3. Through wallet functions and TON blockchain integration, Telegram provides a simplified crypto asset experience for millions of users. The deep integration of traditional social networks and blockchain technology has become a battleground for crypto strategists.
Can Crypto usher in "Mass Adoption"? Who can handle the overwhelming traffic of Telegram's nearly 1 billion users? Are the attempts of various simple mini-programs: Dogs, hamsters, and NOT the best solution? Can the close connection between Telegram and TON ensure that it becomes the only traffic entry chain of Telegram, or will it be preempted by Solana, which launched Blinks (Blockchain links)?
Recommended reading:
- Update | Backed by 1 billion Telegram users, a comprehensive review of the TON ecosystem on the eve of its explosion. TON has a technical logic centered on high-speed applications: transactions are based on messages directly on the chain, supporting peer-to-peer.
- Catizen, a popular click-through game on Telegram, has attracted 800,000 paying users in half a year. Catizen claims that its total number of users has reached 30 million and ranks first in revenue among Telegram applications.
RWA: Blockchainization of Traditional Assets
The tokenization of real world assets (RWA) is another highlight this year. From tokenized bonds to real estate projects, RWA has built a bridge between DeFi and traditional finance, and has also injected more liquidity and trust into the market. The TVL of the Ondo protocol is less than $1 billion, but the FDV (full circulation market value) of the token exceeds 10 billion. The market hype is enough to show that the outside world has a very high prediction of the development potential of the RWA track.
The entry of BlackRock's RWA fund BUIDL has further stimulated the market's imagination. A trillion-dollar asset management giant will transfer tens of trillions of U.S. Treasury bond income and more traditional financial bills to the blockchain? Ethena, Curve, Frax Finance, whoever establishes cooperation with BUIDL will get a boost in the price of the currency. The market is voting with its feet.
Recommended reading:
- Data chart report: Stablecoins, TradFi and RWA are leading the next wave of Web3 . The activity of this round of market cycle is far greater than the previous bull market.
- RWA is expanding the boundaries of crypto finance by lending millions of dollars for a classical musical instrument Yat Siu borrowed millions of dollars from Galaxy using a 316-year-old violin as collateral.
- Grayscale report: "Public chain and tokenization revolution", who is the biggest beneficiary of RWA? Although various assets can benefit from the tokenization trend, the most promising ones are protocols that can provide a universal global platform.
AI: Combining artificial intelligence with blockchain
2024 is the year of AI. ChatGPT and other AI models continue to be popular, pushing Nvidia to become the world's largest company by market value. The huge wealth effect has driven the crypto industry to explore "AI + blockchain". In addition to the hotly speculated AI projects such as WLD, RENDER, and AI, the exploration of AI + Meme has further increased the popularity of the track and the participation of retail investors - Truth Terminal has emerged, and Memes led by GOAT, ACT, and Fartcoin are hot .
There are more and more AI Agents on Twitter, and AI Agent frameworks such as ai16z and zerebro have contributed greatly to this. Will the future of blockchain be dominated by AI? Agents interact and invest with each other on the chain, which is full of cyberpunk feeling.
Recommended reading:
- The average three-day increase was 98%. The review of AI Meme potential coins showed 14 increases and 2 decreases. The average three-day increase was 98%. Shoggoth, LUM and ai16z led the gains.
- Ten ways to find AI Agent leaders In the crypto industry, it is necessary to always have a practical AI Agent methodology.
Sui: The protagonist of this round of public chains
In each cycle, a Layer 1 public chain rises strongly. Who will be the protagonist of this round? Sui rose strongly in the second half of this year, winning people over with its growth, and driving the simultaneous development of ecological projects and data.
Behind Sui's strong rise, more and more people are betting on the Move language and the Move language public chain. At the same time, the development of ecological protocols and airdrops have brought wealth-making effects to ordinary users, and users and the ecology have grown together.
Betting on games, launching the game console SuiPlay 0X1, and the new product decentralized storage protocol Walrus... Sui's 2025 is worth looking forward to.
Recommended reading:
- Sui, a "maverick" public chain "Sui is a public chain with a very clear development direction." said a developer.
- Sui developer product matrix at a glance: Not only did the public chain Deepbook surge 7 times after its launch, SuiNS TGE is imminent, and Walrus is also going to issue a coin?
- As SUI reaches a new high, let’s talk about the differences between the three major Move public chains from the user’s perspective. Sui and Aptos are formal rivals, each with its own advantages. The ecological effect of Movement should not be underestimated.
Ethereum: Development in Reflection
In 2024, Ethereum spent the year under the "FUD" doubt. The return of Solana and the Meme track's seizure of retail user traffic put Ethereum under considerable pressure.
The price trend of the currency was poor, and the ETH/BTC exchange rate once fell to near the historical low. The researcher of the Ethereum Foundation was questioned for losing neutrality for the sake of interests because he became an advisor to EigenLayer, which may bring conflicts of interest to Ethereum L1.
But is Ethereum in 2024 really useless?
No, from the successful completion of the Cancun upgrade at the beginning of the year to the Beam roadmap proposed at the end of the year to upgrade the Ethereum execution layer to solve technical issues, although Ethereum is slow, it has always been sticking to its own roadmap, proceeding step by step, and developing through reflection and adjustment.
Recommended reading:
- A concise understanding of Based Rollup: How to make Ethereum glorious again? Based Rollup can make Ethereum's Layer 2 ecosystem interoperable again.
- Bull Market Charge (Part 2): The dawn of Ethereum is imminent, and $10,000 is not a dream. After many twists and turns, you may think there is no way out, but there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
- Perspective 2024: Annual Review of the Ethereum Ecosystem Ethereum is the first to encounter difficulties because it has come the furthest.
DeFi: From the trough to the resurgence
In the crypto circle where people prefer new things to old things, the popularity of Mindshare, a DeFi token, once dropped to freezing point, and was far lower than that of Meme tokens.
But DeFi is indeed a core use case of blockchain, and now we have the US President betting on it: Trump's World Liberty recently purchased a variety of DeFi assets, including ETH, WBTC, AAVE, LINK, ENA and ONDO. The price of DeFi tokens has rebounded, and the DeFi "Renaissance" may be happening.
What innovations has DeFi seen this year? Why do we believe DeFi will be revived? Recommended reading:
Why did the old DeFi leader CRV rise? Which related tokens are worth paying attention to? Curve is the DeFi infrastructure, DeFi is the core use case of blockchain, and institutions are rushing to enter the market
DeFi’s Breakout Moment: Financial Transformation of ether.fi, Aave, Sky, and Lido After years of liquidity bootstrapping and moat building, we are witnessing some DeFi protocols shifting to a stage of sustainable profitability.
The Fed cuts interest rates, is the horn of DeFi recovery sounded? The Fed’s loose monetary policy constitutes the perfect conditions for DeFi to flourish.
NFT: Is issuing coins a new solution?
After two years of a one-way bear market, NFT finally started sector rotation at the end of the year. The opportunity that ignited all this was the release of the Meme token PENGU by the blue-chip NFT Pudgy Penguins, which brought wealth effects to NFT holders and even the wider crypto community.
Seeing that Pudgy Penguin's coin issuance operation doubled the floor price of NFT within a week, other projects followed suit: Azuki officially retweeted the video tweet released by the Animecoin account, with the caption "A new chapter is waiting to be opened." This move may be an advance notice of the planned coin issuance; Doodles founder burnt toast tweeted, "take ownership, keep evolving new ideas, shape communities, open minds, inspire new growth." Some users later discovered that the first letters of each word together mean "token is coming", suggesting that tokens will be launched.
Is issuing coins really the panacea for NFT? Will the recovery of NFT continue next year? 2025 is worth looking forward to.
Recommended reading:
- Data analysis: ETH liquidity overflows, Ethereum NFT sector rebounds. Ethereum liquidity overflows, and trapped NFTs are saved.
- Year-end benefits! A complete analysis of PENGU's wealth effect and airdrop qualifications. The NFT that can get the most PENGU tokens is not the fat penguin.
- OpenSea 2.0 speculation: Points? Airdrops? NFT Launchpad? Points? Airdrops? Deeper GameFi integration? Bitcoin ordinals? NFT Launchpad?
Further reading
Top 10 Crypto Moments of 2024: Trump's Election, Spot ETF Approval, Bitcoin Breaks $100,000 for the First Time
