2024, despite many ups and downs, has reached a historic milestone when witnessing the SEC's approval of the Bitcoin Spot ETF, opening the floodgates for capital from institutional investors to pour into crypto assets. Thanks to that, BTC prices continuously hit new peaks, continuously broke records and then ended the year above the $100,000 mark.
This year, the crypto regulatory story has become hotter than ever, as it has become a battleground between the two ideals of “innovation” and “compliance”. In addition, 2024 is also the year of the US Presidential election, with crypto-friendly policies being used by many politicians to attract voters and donors.
If we look back at this time in a few years, 2024 will certainly mark a historic turning point in the digital asset market, when crypto has officially entered the traditional financial flow.
The SEC , the securities regulator in the United States, under the leadership of Chairman Gary Gensler in 2024, has continued a policy that is widely seen as "suppressing" the crypto sector, continuously using securities arguments to impose violations on prominent companies and projects in the industry.
Luckily, this is a story with a happy ending...
1. SEC Approves Bitcoin Spot ETF
Early morning of January 11, 2024 (Vietnam time), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 11 Bitcoin spot ETFs of Wall Street giants.
This “green light” signal is like a push to open up opportunities for investors to access digital assets through traditional stock exchanges. From there, a large amount of new capital will flow in, bringing the crypto market into a new growth cycle.
And in fact, developments throughout 2024 have proven this assessment to be correct.
2. SEC Approves Ethereum Spot ETF
4 months after the SEC approved the Bitcoin spot ETF, in the early morning of May 24 (Vietnam time), this "green light" continued to be turned on for the Ethereum spot ETF .
The crypto community is delighted to receive a second piece of good news, another historic milestone, as well as a big surprise in the eyes of market observers, because:
First, the SEC has not had constructive dialogue with ETF initiators, unlike the pre-Bitcoin spot ETF phase.
Second is the anti-ETH stance of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who has recently targeted many companies in the Ethereum ecosystem such as Uniswap and Consensys , as well as continuously ambiguous on the question of securities classification for ETH .
Gensler has repeatedly stated that all other currencies besides Bitcoin are securities and has been “indifferent” to the idea of an Ethereum ETF. The apparent hostility of the head of the regulatory agency suggests that there is absolutely no chance that the SEC will change its mind.
However, in just one day, May 21, the SEC made a "turnaround" move when it asked the units that were submitting applications to establish Ethereum spot ETFs to submit additional 19b-4 documents . Next, the SEC asked the two stock exchanges Nasdaq and CBOE to quickly update and adjust the applications to list and trade Ethereum spot ETFs - a "reminder" from the SEC that usually only occurs before preparing to list and trade a new asset on the stock exchange.
The process was a bit messy, but the end result was enough to satisfy the digital asset community. The Ethereum spot ETF was approved on May 24 and will begin trading on July 23, 2024 (US time), opening up a new flow of money from traditional institutions into the market.
3. SEC wins series of lawsuits
Genesis pays $21 million fine
Genesis was a company that went bankrupt in January 2023 after being heavily implicated in the collapse of the Three Arrows Capital crypto hedge fund and the FTX crisis. At the same time, the SECsued Gemini and Genesis for illegally offering and selling securities to retail investors through the Gemini Earn crypto lending program.
Gemini Earn is a crypto asset savings program created by Gemini exchange, in cooperation with Genesis as a lending partner. When FTX went bankrupt and implicated Genesis, this unit blocked withdrawals and "locked" 900 million USD of Gemini Earn users' money from mid-November 2022 to present. In January 2023, Gemini announced that it was cutting ties with Genesis and closing the Earn product.
Finally, on January 31, 2024, Genesis agreed to pay a fine of 21 million USD to the SEC to close the lawsuit that lasted for more than a year.
Do Kwon and Terraform Labs pay $4.47 billion fine
In February 2023, the SEC filed charges against Do Kwon and Terraform Labs, claiming that LUNA-UST was a security . In April 2024, the court officially recognized the fraud allegations that the SEC had raised. The SEC then ordered Terraform Labs to pay $5.3 billion in damages .
However, the actual amount was less than the SEC had requested. On June 12, 2024, Do Kwon and current Terraform Labs CEO Chris Amani agreed to pay a $4.47 billion fine to the SEC after the two sides reached a settlement. The fine that Kwon and Terraform Labs must pay includes $3.58 billion in illegal proceeds, $420 million in civil penalties and prejudgment interest. In addition, Kwon must pay at least $204 million out of his own pocket to compensate investors who suffered losses.
The judgment will also permanently prohibit Do Kwon and Terraform Labs from buying and selling crypto-asset securities including tokens in the Terra ecosystem, and prevent and disallow Do Kwon from becoming an officer or director of any securities issuer.
Ripple fined $125 million
On August 8, 2024, the Southern District Court of New York decided to fine Ripple $125 million for illegal securities offering in the form of XRP tokens.
This is part of the verdict in the lawsuit between the SEC and Ripple, which has been going on since late 2020 until now, according to which the SEC accused Ripple of illegally conducting an XRP securities offering and making a profit of 1.3 billion USD.
In mid-2023, the court ruled that Ripple’s sales of XRP through third-party exchanges could not be considered securities offerings, but that direct sales to institutions were securities. This ruling partially cleared Ripple of liability, and prevented the SEC from fully charging the company.
Since then, the two have been at loggerheads over the size of the fine imposed on Ripple for its illegal securities offering. In March 2024, the SEC filed a $2 billion fine proposal against Ripple , which was met with backlash .
As a result, the judge pegged Ripple's fine at $125 million based on "1,278 transactions with institutional investors found to have violated securities laws," as well as ordering the company not to repeat this behavior in the future.
SEC fines stablecoin issuer TUSD
On September 25, 2024, the SEC said it had sanctioned TrueCoin LLC and TrustToken Inc. — both now rebranded as Archblock — to settle securities charges against the TUSD stablecoin product.
TrueCoin was the original issuer of TrueUSD (TUSD) , while TrustToken developed the TrueFi lending platform that integrated TUSD. Both companies neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s allegations, but agreed to pay a fine of $163,766 each, with TrueCoin paying an additional $340,930 in illicit profits.
TrueCoin later transferred management of TUSD to another company called Techteryx, which is rumored to be linked to Justin Sun.
According to the SEC, between November 2020 and April 2023, TrueCoin and TrustToken conducted unauthorized securities offerings in the form of the stablecoin TUSD, as well as profited from TUSD through lending services on TrueFi.
The SEC also accused the two companies of making false advertising claims that they were a safe and reliable investment option, fully backed by US dollars and equivalent assets, when in fact the majority of their assets were high-risk investments in foreign investment funds to earn additional profits.
By the end of 2022, TrueCoin and TrustToken had problems processing withdrawals for customers, but continued to make false statements to reassure investors.
The SEC stated that as of September 2024, 99% of the assets backing TUSD will be allocated to high-risk investment funds.
4. The SEC front "defeated"
Paxos Investigation Ends, No Longer Allegedly BUSD Is a Security
On February 10, 2023, the New York government announced that it was investigating Paxos, the issuer of BUSD. Two days later, Paxos officially received a Wells Notice from the SEC , accusing BUSD of being a disguised security.
Paxos was also forced by authorities to stop issuing BUSD , leading to the decision to cut ties with Binance - because BUSD at that time was associated with the name of the world's largest crypto asset exchange.
As a result, Paxos had to burn 700 million BUSD , then Binance , CEO Changpeng Zhao and the crypto community gradually separated themselves and "killed" this stablecoin. Binance alone removed BUSD trading pairs at the end of last year and chose many other stablecoins to replace it.
However, on July 11, 2024, the SEC “withdrew” from the Paxos investigation , accepting to close the charges against Paxos from February 2023, and also not recommending any enforcement action.
The SEC’s “withdrawal” is also believed to have been influenced by a recent court ruling in favor of Binance , which held that secondary market sales of BNB are not considered securities, similar to a mid-2023 ruling related to the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple.
SEC Ends Ethereum Investigation
On the morning of June 19, Consensys, the blockchain infrastructure company behind the crypto wallet MetaMask, confirmed that the SEC had ended its investigation into Ethereum , meaning the SEC would no longer pursue allegations that ETH sales constituted securities transactions.
SEC Chairman Resigns
However, the news that was most welcomed by the entire crypto market was the confirmation that Chairman Gary Gensler would resign on January 20, 2025, the time when Mr. Trump returns to the US presidency.
In the eyes of crypto supporters, Gary Gensler has become a "villain" when he continuously takes actions to suppress companies in this field with continuous lawsuits and warning letters, despite the fact that the US has not yet issued federal regulations on crypto management.
Mr. Gensler and the SEC were recently sued by 18 US states for allegedly abusing their power in the process of cracking down on crypto.
Because he was not popular, Donald Trump during his campaign affirmed that one of his first decisions after returning to the White House would be to fire Gary Gensler . But without waiting for the decision to fire him, Gensler "voluntarily" ended his term early.
With his return to the 2024 US Presidential race, Donald Trump also brought crypto assets into US politics.
5. Cryptocurrency Enters the Race for the White House
The 2024 US presidential election has become a landing ground for crypto-promoting tactics from politicians. The pioneer is candidate Donald Trump, whose campaign has made crypto one of the main talking points to attract supporters, stemming from the recent actions of the current Biden administration and the Democratic Party against companies in the industry.
Trump's appearance at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference was likened to a "bomb" that exploded the crypto world, turning it into a solid "rear" accompanying this candidate throughout the election journey.
Also worth mentioning is Polymarket , the betting prediction market that seems to be everyone's main source of information. The community holds its breath watching every single number of the odds between Trump and Biden and later Harris, as well as voting on many other aspects of the race for the White House.
6. Trump keeps promoting crypto
On November 6, in sync with the global market, BTC prices also exploded when Mr. Trump was confirmed as the US President.
The return of Donald Trump is like a breath of fresh air into the crypto market, bringing a breath of hope and full of expectations for a new future.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Trump is the first "crypto president" in the land of the stars and stripes, because the politician constantly mentioned digital assets throughout the election campaign, not only clearly recognizing the importance of crypto but also considering it a strategic field, on par with the stock market. Recently, Trump also expressed his ambition to bring the price of Bitcoin to $150,000 in the early stages of his term.
Not only Mr. Trump, other members of the Trump family also became advisors to the DeFi World Liberty Financial project, cooperating with many projects in the industry such as Aave , Ethena ,... Although it is not known whether it will be successful or not, this project proves the recognition of the Trump family, the family that is at the center of the US geopolitical economy, with crypto.
7. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Fund
From the head of the United States Donald Trump to states like Texas ,Ohio , Pennsylvania or Alabama, all have mentioned the proposal of strategic Bitcoin reserves.
Additionally, the states of Wisconsin , Florida , and Michigan are seeing increased interest in crypto, demonstrating that crypto assets are slowly conquering the US from the state to the federal level.
This year's "king coin" has gone through its 4th Bitcoin Halving, followed by strong price increases to record a new ATH milestone. It is truly a "winning" year for Bitc oin and its supporters.
8. Bitcoin Halving 4th success
At 07:10 AM on April 20, 2024 (Vietnam time), Bitcoin completed the 4th Halving event at block 840,000, mined by ViaBTC mining pool.
Since Bitcoin was born in 2009 , this currency has undergone 3 Halvings in 2012, 2016 and 2020 .
With this halving, the block reward has been reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Halving events will continue until the last BTC is expected to be mined around the year 2140. After that, miners will only receive transaction fees from blocks.
9. Total Bitcoin ETF inflow is over $35 billion
Living up to expectations, the Bitcoin spot ETF has indeed "opened the valve" for cash flow from Wall Street investors. Of the 11 funds currently trading on the market, BlackRock's IBIT has far surpassed all competitors as it has broken new value milestones one after another, even surpassing many veteran ETFs of traditional finance. BlackRock now holds more Bitcoin than gold after only 10 months thanks to ETFs.
By the end of 2024, total inflows into Bitcoin ETFs have reached $35.2 billion , with BlackRock's IBIT and Fidelity's FBTC leading the way. Meanwhile, the total value of BTC held by ETFs is now over 1.13 million Bitcoin , worth over $100 billion - surpassing the rumored BTC hoard owned by Satoshi Nakamoto .
Statistics on inflow/outflow of Bitcoin ETFs. Source: Farside Investors (December 31, 2024)
10. Bitcoin ATH over $100,000
On December 17, 2024 (Vietnam time), the crypto community once again celebrated when Bitcoin continued to soar, breaking the old peak and setting a new ATH at 108,000 USD . This is also the highest weekly candle closing in the history of the top 1 coin in market capitalization.
Bitcoin price movement over the past 1 year, screenshot on CoinGecko at 12:20 PM on 12/31/2024
Following the rise of its big brother, Ethereum also returned to the $4,000 threshold for the first time since March this year.
Total market capitalization also hit an ATH of $3.8 trillion, having been steadily rising in recent months.
11. MicroStrategy and its exemplary DCA strategy
Bitcoin has hit a new record price, so of course companies have switched from BTC losses to profits. As a pioneer with the Bitcoin DCA strategy for many years, MicroStrategy has finally reaped the rewards this year.
As of press time, MicroStrategy holds a total of 446,400 BTC with an average purchase price of $62,400. In other words, this investment is profitable by 48.4%, equivalent to a profit of $13.48 billion.
MicroStrategy's Bitcoin Purchase History. Source: SaylorTracker (December 31, 2024)
Not only has it become a case study for American investors, MicroStrategy shares were first included in the Nasdaq 100 index , after a year of MSTR's price explosion, reaching a capitalization of nearly $98 billion. Being included in the Nasdaq 100 will help MSTR shares access passive investment cash flows from large American institutions. According to analysts, ETFs derived from the Nasdaq 100 have a total asset value of up to $550 billion.
MicroStrategy announced a new plan in late October, aiming to raise an additional $42 billion over the next three years to further increase its BTC holdings. The company's usual fundraising method is to issue bonds with the option to convert directly into MSTR shares at a preferential price.
This strategy has been called “infinite money printing error” by financial analysts, which helps the company easily attract a huge amount of capital in a short time to buy Bitcoin, thereby increasing the company’s value without worrying about affecting MSTR’s stock price.
Following MicroStrategy's example, a series of other companies this year also announced their investment in BTC, typically Metaplanet, which is considered the "Asian MicroStrategy".
Despite being the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ethereum has been mired in controversy this year over its price performance and network performance. The “liquidity drain” to Layer-2 (L2) is a headache not only for the Ethereum mainnet but also reduces activity on DeFi protocols.
12. Ethereum Successfully Deploys Dencun Upgrade
After many failed upgrade tests, leading to constant changes to the original roadmap from 2023 to late February 2024 , Ethereum finally deployed the Dencun upgrade.
On March 13, 2024 (Vietnam time), the Dencun upgrade - a combination of Deneb (updated at Consensus) and Cancun (updated at Execution) on the Ethereum network - was officially activated for deployment at epoch 269568.
Dencun introduces a concept called “proto-danksharding,” which is designed to improve transaction scalability while reducing gas fees. It also lays the groundwork for future upgrades like danksharding, which promise to radically change the face of Ethereum.
Dencun has brought many improvement proposals for Ethereum such as EIP-1153, EIP-4788, EIP-6780, EIP-7044,... since the Shanghai upgrade unlocked ETH staking in April 2023. One of the important proposals is EIP-4844 , which provides a new block creation structure called “blob” to hold transaction data from layer-2 .
A simple illustration of the "blob" - a new block-creation structure that helps Ethereum optimize transaction data storage after Dencun. Source: TrueWaveBreak
By using blobs to store transactions, layer-2s on Ethereum will be able to reduce the burden of fees when transferring data to the mainnet, thereby cutting fees on these platforms many times over.
13. Layer-2 Explosion
And indeed, Dencun brings both advantages and disadvantages to Ethereum.
The most obvious advantage is the new gas fee structure that has helped the L2 array grow.
Not only is the amount of blob usage skyrocketing, the Ethereum layer-2 ecosystem is also experiencing a strong surge in TVL in 2024, especially with the two main networks Arbitrum One and Base. Specifically, the total assets locked on these L2s has exceeded the threshold of 54.5 billion USD, an increase of more than 200% compared to 2023.
Leading L2s like the L2Beat data below all have their own stories to attract users.
Ethereum layer-2s have the largest TVL. Source: L2Beat (December 31, 2024)
Although Base was born later, thanks to the support from the largest crypto asset exchange in the US, Coinbase, as well as the uniqueness of the projects in its ecosystem, it has accelerated strongly, currently ranking 2nd in TVL.
OP Mainnet is moving towards becoming a platform to connect other blockchains through Optimism Superchain. The L2 OP Stack building toolkit has become the most trusted tool today, when there are a series of other blockchains that have been favored such as Base , Unichain , World Chain , Soneium , Blast , opBNB , Celo , Mantle , Aevo , Fraxtal , Mode Network , Manta Pacific , Zora Network , Ancient8 Chain , BOB , Cyber and Ink , with a total of 60 currently.
Top layer-2s in Optimism's Superchain ecosystem. Source: Optimism (December 31, 2024)
On the other hand, the downside to the Ethereum mainnet is also obvious. The fragmentation of liquidity to L2s has caused activity on the mainnet to decline.
Ethereum is becoming less attractive to users, as the first choice is a cheaper and faster L2, causing the mainnet revenue to decrease. The over-centralization of L2s is also a topic that developers have dissected. One side supports the scalability of the diverse L2 array, while the other side criticizes Ethereum for its lack of innovation and lack of proper direction.
Ethereum's "lack of heat" last year was also reflected in ETH price fluctuations, because while many other top altcoins have set ATHs, ETH is still struggling to find a way to regain the "glory" of the 2021 period, but before it could go anywhere, it was pushed back to its old level by market adjustments.
Compare price movements of top coins in 2024. Source: TradingView (December 31, 2024)
Notorious figures in the crypto industry this year have faced appropriate sentences for their wrongdoings, thereby helping to clean up the crypto market and contribute to a more transparent and clean environment.
14. Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
After a trial lasting more than a month in late 2023, in March 2024, Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison . This is another severe sentence for the many crimes he committed, not only against the crypto asset market, but also against many users and organizations in the traditional market.
After SBF, the trials of the former FTX worm took place throughout the year. The guilty ones all received appropriate sentences, including former FTX Digital Markets Director Ryan Salame ( 7.5 years in prison ), former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison ( 2 years in prison ), former FTX CTO Nishad Singh ( no prison sentence , 3 years probation), and former CTO Gary Wang ( no prison sentence , 3 years probation).
15. Changpeng Zhao was sentenced to 4 months in prison.
On April 30 (US time), the sentencing hearing for former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) finally took place. For violating money laundering regulations, CZ was sentenced to 4 months in prison , much lower than the previous indictments recommended.
The reason CZ was given a “lenient” sentence was because he was sincere, cooperative, and did not fight extradition, but took the initiative to come to the United States for trial. There were also 161 other letters from family, friends, and others asking for leniency from the law.
CZ also had to pay a fine of $50 million and was banned from holding a management position at Binance for 3 years.
Since early June, CZ has been serving his sentence and has been sent to a detention facility in Long Beach, California, but since late August has been transferred to a reintegration facility to prepare for his release. According to the warden, CZ has had a relatively comfortable time here, being allowed to take “short trips” and “watch movies”.
CZ was finally released on September 27 (US time).
16. Tornado Cash Developer Sentenced to 64 Months in Prison
Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev has been found guilty by a Dutch court of laundering $1.2 billion in illicit assets on the crypto-asset mixing platform between July 2019 and August 2022.
The jury sentenced Pertsev, a 31-year-old Russian citizen living in the Netherlands, to five years and four months in prison (equivalent to 64 months), in accordance with the prosecution's previous request.
"The nature and function of Tornado Cash is that it is a tool for criminals. Users with criminal intentions are given maximum opportunity to use the platform," a judge stated.
Prosecutors also cited a 2022 report from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which said Tornado Cash had been used to launder more than $7 billion in dirty crypto assets since 2019, including $455 million stolen by the Lazarus Group, a hacker group linked to North Korea. OFAC also cited recent crypto attacks in which hackers laundered Tornado Cash, including $96 million from Harmony’s Horizon bridge and about $7.8 million from the Nomad bridge .
The Tornado Cash incident has been controversial in the crypto community because it threatens the decentralized nature of blockchains. Many argue that the creator of a tool cannot be held responsible if the product is used for malicious purposes.
17. Telegram founder arrested in France
On August 25, the global technology world was shocked by the news that Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested while in transit at Le Bourget airport in Paris, France.
Pavel Durov is one of the most influential people in the global technology world but is little known because of his secretive lifestyle. He is the founder of the social network VK, which is considered the Facebook of Russia. After refusing to provide user information to the government, he was forced to sell VK to someone else and moved to the UAE. Here, he devoted himself to developing the Telegram application, a messaging application used by the global crypto community.
Telegram's founder also revealed that he has invested in Bitcoin for the past 10 years , and in recent years has continuously made moves to integrate crypto assets into his application such as supporting the TON blockchain , supporting crypto wallets and mini app stores about Web3 games.
France later announced 12 formal charges against the Telegram CEO, including using the platform to facilitate illegal transactions, possessing and distributing child pornography, and drug trafficking. Paris also denied that the arrest was politically motivated, insisting that it was purely legal action.
However, the arrest hassparked criticism from prominent figures such as Vitalik Buterin, Edward Snowden and Elon Musk , who have called the arrest unjustified and called for the Telegram CEO's release. Robert F. Kennedy has also voiced support for Durov and stressed the importance of protecting basic human rights.
Airdrop has been and continues to be the most vibrant land in the crypto market. The relationship between the community and the crypto project is clearly shown through the airdrop method, 9 out of 10 airdrop projects will not escape drama.
18. Blockbuster turned out to be a flop
Starknet (STRK)
On February 14, the Starknet Foundation provided details on the timing of the airdrop event for STRK , the native token of the Starknet layer-2 network.
Accordingly, 700 million STRK tokens will be rewarded to early users and members who have contributed to the project's development. The airdrop date is February 20, 2024.
However, many crypto users, after learning that they did not meet the airdrop requirements,criticized Starknet for setting the bar too high, as well as "favoring" the programmers too much instead of early adopters who spent hundreds of dollars but received nothing, while developers only needed to make small contributions such as correcting spelling errors to receive airdrops.
The conflict escalated when someone pointed out the STRK token unlock schedule. Accordingly, on April 15, 2024, just 2 months after the airdrop, Starknet will release up to 13% of the total token supply to the development team and investors, meaning that the circulating token supply will then increase 3 times.
Although StarkWare CEO himself has spoken out to affirm the project's stance, determined not to be swayed by community opinion, in the end, the unlock schedule had to be adjusted. According to the new schedule , only 0.64% of the total token supply (64 million STRK) will be unlocked on April 15.
However, being too favorable to developers has resulted in users “spamming” GitHub with airdrops , while this is originally a platform for programmers to update and contribute for real.
Wormhole (W)
Althoughthe airdrop was announced in March, Wormhole set the date to claim the W token on the evening of April 3. However, the project did not announce specific criteria, leaving those who did not receive the airdrop without knowing why they were rejected. So they switched to trading the memecoin “L” as a form of mockery.
It was not until a few hours before the claim that the project announced the W token development roadmap .
Then there was another incident where the project forgot to exclude its attacker , so it accidentally allocated more than 31,600 W to 4 wallets related to the 325 million USD hack in February 2022. But fortunately, the project promptly completely revoked the above allocation.
EigenLayer (EIGEN)
The airdrop drama started to heat up when EigenLayer introduced the EIGEN token and its airdrop plan to users at the end of April. The airdrop announcement was considered a "total failure" as it both caused public confusion and had a series of shortcomings.
The project team was then forced to announce additional airdrops and update tokenomics to appease the community.
However, being so "complicated" and "complicated" has made the community gradually lose faith in the quality and development potential of the project.
friend.tech (FRIEND)
As mentioned in Coin68 's E-magazine 23 events 2023 , friend.tech is the project that started the current trend of point rewards.
Launched in 2023, the project did not airdrop FRIEND tokens until May 2024, with 100% of the token allocation being given to users. Needless to say, the community rushed to claim tokens to "dump", causing the price of FRIEND to plummet more than 99% after the airdrop.
By September, the friend.tech team announced that they were abandoning the project , marking the end of the SocialFi trend .
LayerZero (ZRO)
If friend.tech started the point trend, then LayerZero is probably the project that started the "sybil hunting" crusade.
The original intention was good: the project was frustrated with the situation of too many "airdrop hunters" losing opportunities for real users, so it needed to filter out sybil wallets . But the self-declaration campaign quickly turned into a fight for mutual accusations, spam , sybil hunting ,...
So as time went on, LayerZero's sybil war became more and more flawed, overloaded, and had a series of problems. The community became more and more divided, instead of being united to support the project.
After passing the sybil stage, users still cannot escape the fate when receiving airdrop. On June 20, LayerZero announced the ZRO airdrop, forcing users to "donate" to receive tokens .
With all the drama mentioned above, investor confidence is waning, as evident by the fact that after the snapshot announcement, daily activity on LayerZero dropped to a record low .
ZKsync (ZK)
Putting aside the fight over ZK ticker, ZKsync (ZK) airdrop announcement also "tortured" users no less than LayerZero.
The accusations made by the community say that real projects and real users of the ecosystem are "left out", airdrop criteria are ambiguous, some people spend a lot of time and money "farming air" but get nothing in return...
As a result, more than 40% of the top ZKsync airdrop wallets sold tokens, pushing the price down sharply. By the second airdrop , the project's FDV had dropped by 40%.
Hamster Kombat (HMSTR)
On September 26, the HMSTR token of the 58th Binance Launchpool project, Hamster Kombat, was officially listed on most large and small exchanges.
A day before the listing, Hamster Kombat conducted an airdrop to 131 million eligible users out of the 300 million total registrations for the game since its launch this summer.
Previously, the project "eloquently" announced that it would set aside 60% of the total supply (equivalent to 60 billion HMSTR tokens) to airdrop to players.
However, the project's distribution strategy has created a wave of fierce criticism . Because many players said they spent nearly half a year experiencing the game, but after listing the official trading price around 0.01 USD, calculating the past time's efforts only brought in about 5 - 30 USD, a number too small compared to the statement "this will be the biggest airdrop in the history of the crypto industry ".
"Airdrops are dead."
— defizard (@belizardd) December 28, 2024
2024 had 37 airdrops worth $159 billion.
🧵: Re-cap. pic.twitter.com/DiKts3mlgw
19. It's not delicious but it's surprisingly delicious.
Hyperliquid (HYPE)
On November 28, layer-1 blockchain and derivative DEX Hyperliquid airdropped HYPE tokens to the community after more than 1 month of announcing the plan.
Notably, in Hyperliquid's airdrop, with a total supply of 1 billion units, the project team decided to allocate up to 31% of HYPE tokens (equivalent to 310 million tokens) to eligible community users and did not come with an unlock schedule.
In contrast to the usual selling pressure on tokens after airdrops, HYPE trading demand seems to exceed supply, reflecting positive market sentiment with strong growth. This has led to all airdrop recipients earning thousands to millions of dollars in profits with a starting capital of just over or under $1,000. As a result, the community has continuously praised HYPE as the best airdrop of 2024 .
In the following days, HYPE price continued to grow, as well as the DEX exchange increased its trading volume and number of users.
Movement (MOVE)
Not as famous as HYPE, but the MOVE airdrop also scored points in the eyes of users. Because it was launched right at the time of the bullish market, altcoins skyrocketed.
Despite criticism for trying to "dump tokens" before the layer-2 fever cooled down because of Movement airdrop and TGE listing before mainnet launch. But all voices quieted down whenMOVE listed on the exchange at a price that "satisfied" early supporters.
As you can see, the evaluation of whether an airdrop is "good" or "failed" mainly depends on the token price and the profit it brings to the airdrop farmer.
Last year, BTC broke the peak, BTC.D also climbed, causing altcoins to fluctuate, holders were in trouble, only memecoin was vibrant all year long, always had new trends, always had new "deals".
That's why the community affectionately calls this the " super cycle" of memecoin .
20. The rise of pump.fun and SOL memecoin
For a long time, memecoin has become an indispensable “culture” of the crypto market, where it is a clever combination of creative stories, community spirit and dry numbers.
After more than 15 years of development, the market has gradually shaped its pieces. While major coins such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chainlink have achieved stable growth and become a line of defense for investors, the desire to "get rich quick" has been transferred to the altcoin and memecoin groups.
Although technology altcoins have many applications and long-term development potential, they are often controlled by institutional investors from the beginning by pouring capital and high valuations . From the beginning of 2024 until now, technology altcoins have only brought disappointment because the price has fallen without stopping.
In the end, only the memecoin playground remains where small investors look for opportunities to break out. Unlike technology altcoins, memecoin has no product, high technology or any application, it is simply an idea, a story to guide the community.
Solana was definitely the network with the strongest memecoin movement during the recent growth period. Solana is probably now remembered more as a memecoin blockchain than the parallel blockchain it once was.
With the advantages of high speed, cheap gas fees and the outstanding growth of leading birds such as Bonk (BONK) and Dogwifhat (WIF) , the memecoin movement on Solana is strongly promoted.
Top Solana memecoins. Source: CoinGecko (December 31, 2024)
Especially after the emergence of the pump.fun platform, where anyone can create a memecoin project in a snap at almost zero cost. That's why, of the nearly half a million tokens issued on Solana in May,
