Have you experienced aesthetic fatigue after seeing so many institutions' annual reviews and outlooks?

Recently, CoinMarketCap also released a 2024-25 Crypto Market Yearbook, reviewing the major innovations, market-shaking moments, and unforgettable milestones of the past year, while also looking ahead to 2025.

But interestingly, this yearbook appears lively and interactive:

In the review section, CMC uses a more design-oriented, lively, and unconventional style to vividly depict the major events of the past year; and in the outlook section, unlike the expert forecasts of institutions, CMC has handed the decision-making power to the market - for you to vote on the trends that may occur in 2025.

For example, do you think which projects will make big news in 2025? Is it the pure Meme Fartcoin, or the Trump-related World Liberty Financial?

In addition, the entire yearbook is full of charts and analyses worth collecting, which TechFlow has edited and interpreted and presented as follows.

Suits & Ties VS Laser Eyes, Both Are Winners

Throughout 2024, from the perspective of the retail investors, you may have been pondering the rise and fall of certain coins; but in the ever-changing crypto market, the yearbook summarizes a more macro trend - "Suits & Ties VS Laser Eyes".

This is indeed a very accurate cultural contrast.

Suits & Ties represent the traditional financial world (Wall Street), symbolizing conservatism, professionalism, and established financial institutions; typical representatives are traditional financial institutions like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.

Laser Eyes is the iconic cultural symbol of the crypto community, originating from Bitcoin supporters adding red laser eyes to their social media avatars, representing crypto believers and emerging digital asset supporters.

In 2024, these two groups were actually both winners.

The two seemingly opposing groups have for the first time truly achieved integration in terms of asset significance:

Traditional financial institutions (such as BlackRock) have started to launch Bitcoin/Ethereum ETFs; Meme coins have reached a market capitalization of over $1 billion, gaining mainstream recognition.

Or perhaps, Wall Street and Web3 are no longer opposites, but partners influencing each other at the same negotiating table.

From past opposition to dividing the cake, the crypto market has entered a new stage of maturity.

Annual Best Crypto Story: The Rise of TON

In the wave of AI Agents, have you forgotten about TON's soaring performance last year?

Telegram's corresponding Layer 1, the growth is astronomical: the user base has increased from 100,000 to a staggering 17.4 million, ranking 8th on CoinMarketCap. With 1,400 dApps and seamless integration with Telegram's 950 million users, TON has proven that it is not just another Layer 1, it is a movement.

And this movement has also gone beyond the crypto circle.

On August 24, 2024, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris, facing charges related to controlling platform activities. This news could have triggered waves of uncertainty, but it sparked a great fire instead.

The Tg community rallied together, posting messages of support on social media, and launched a Meme project, becoming the rallying cry for justice.

CMC's yearbook also amplifies the value of this event:

"This is a declaration of the crypto spirit. A reminder that decentralization is power, and that the purest technology is a tool of freedom, not a tool of error. In that moment, the TON community showed the world that it is not just a blockchain; it is a revolution driven by resilience, unity, and unshakable belief."

Although TON is no longer in the spotlight, it is still one of the many events with bright spots last year.

Annual Best Asset Category: Meme in the Lead, Blooming Diversely

Considering popularity, the yearbook believes the asset categories and projects that performed well are:

1. MEME:

· MEW: The 5th largest Memecoin, utilizing unique token economics, 90% LP token burn, driving a stable price floor and market confidence.

· Popcat: The first cat-themed Memecoin on Solana reached a $1 billion market cap, achieving a $120 million valuation, and pioneered the "cat coin" category.

· WIF: Became the 3rd largest meme coin after DOGE and SHIB within four months, reaching a $3 billion market cap driven by community engagement and Elon Musk's endorsement.

2. Application Areas:

· Polymarket: Invested $3.3B in the 2024 US presidential election, leading the decentralized prediction market, dominating the field through smart contract automation and no-KYC methods.

· Pump.fun: The Memecoin creation on Solana underwent revolutionary changes, fostering the development of 3M+ tokens, attracting 150,000 users, and generating massive revenue. The platform's impact is significant, but also controversial, sometimes fueling the worst of meme culture.

· Binance Lauchpool: Enhanced user engagement through innovative farming mechanisms for new tokens, including successful launches of Notcoin, Scroll, and Catizen.

3. Noteworthy Newcomers:

· Story Protocol: Pioneered blockchain-based IP management, attracting over 100 projects, and fundamentally changing creator rights through programmable IP licensing infrastructure.

· Monad: Next-generation Layer 1 achieving 10,000 TPS and 1-second finality, raised $225 million, and introduced the innovative MonadBFT consensus mechanism.

· Berachain: The innovative Layer 1 with liquid proof-of-stake consensus launched the Artio testnet, attracting 230 active development teams through unique DeFi integrations.

And considering innovation, from AI-enhanced DeFi to real-world asset platforms, from decentralized infrastructure to core scaling solutions - the following projects have pushed the boundaries of on-chain possibilities:

AI Sector:

· Bittensor: Built a framework for decentralized artificial intelligence development, scaling to 64 subnets, while achieving full Ethereum compatibility and launching complex AI models.

· Prime: Leading the AI gaming frontier with flagship games Parallel TCG and Colony, backed by OpenAI integration and the Wayfinder protocol for autonomous AI agents.

· Near: Built the world's largest 1.4T parameter open-source AI model, launched Nightshade 2.0 upgrade, and achieved 400% transaction speed improvement through innovative sharding.

DeFi Sector:

· LIDO: Maintains its dominant position in liquid staking by staking 9.8 million ETH, launches institutional solutions, and reduces the validator requirement from 32 ETH to 2.4 ETH.

· Pendle: Innovates in DeFi yield tokenization, increases its TVL from $230 million to $1 billion through liquidity re-staking and the launch of the Boros margin trading platform.

· EigenLayer: Dominates the re-staking market with an 80% market share, reaches a TVL of $12.9B, re-stakes 4.5 million ETH, and fundamentally changes Ethereum's security model.

DePIN Sector:

· Render: The leading decentralized GPU rendering service has successfully migrated to Solana, expanded into real-time streaming and dynamic NFTs, and provides services to major entertainment and architecture clients.

· Arweave: The permanent storage solution maintains stable growth amid market volatility, pioneering the "pay once, store forever" data storage model.

· Aethir: The decentralized cloud computing platform transforms GPU capabilities into shared resources for gaming and AI, supported by a $100 million ecosystem fund and key partnerships with Nvidia and Filecoin.

RWA Sector:

· Ondo: The first platform to tokenize over $500 million in US Treasuries within four months, occupying over 25% of the market share through partnerships with BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase.

· Clearpool: Redefines institutional liquidity in DeFi, with over $500 million in total loans, and launches Ozean, a Layer 2 network based on the OP Stack, enabling RWA yields.

· Ethena: The synthetic dollar protocol becomes the fourth-largest stablecoin, pioneering risk management through a delta-neutral strategy of spot and short positions.

Infrastructure:

· Sui: Builds the world's largest 1.4T parameter open-source AI model, launches the Nightshade 2.0 upgrade, and achieves a 400% increase in transaction speed through innovative sharding.

· Wormhole: Builds the world's largest 1.4T parameter open-source AI model, launches the Nightshade 2.0 upgrade, and achieves a 400% increase in transaction speed through innovative sharding.

· Arkham: Launches an on-chain perpetual trading platform leveraging intelligence data, pioneering entity-based blockchain analysis.

Note: The selection of the above projects represents the views of this yearbook. Interested readers can also visit the original website to see the introduction of each project, and there are also thoughtful videos to explain them.

Due to the limited space, some projects from different ecosystems are not detailed, but are nominated as follows.

6 Treasure Charts to Take You Through 2024

As is well known, CMC has a hand in data analysis and data visualization.

This yearbook has also selected 6 charts that depict the changes in the crypto market in 2024 from different data dimensions.

1. Best and Worst Performing Sectors: Smart Contracts and Storage

Smart contract-related projects topped the list with a 6000% return, while the worst performing was the storage sector, with a -24% annual return.

2. The Pattern of Bitcoin Halving-Induced Rallies Continues

The Bitcoin halving in 2024 will see the price around $63,000; the journey from an experiment to $100,000 has been witnessed by all, spanning 16 years of Bitcoin's relentless charge.

3. Looking to History, the Turning Point of the Bear Market Doesn't Seem to Have Arrived Yet

Bitcoin and the broader market generally follow a 3-4 year cycle. The chart clearly shows that in the new 2024 cycle, Bitcoin prices have not shown a clear downward trend.

4. Microstrategy Takes the Lead, a Snapshot of Global Institutional/National Bitcoin Holdings

Microstrategy leads the pack with 440,000 Bitcoin holdings, surpassing the holdings of any individual country; while the US and China have not yet opened a significant gap in their Bitcoin holdings.

5. The US Remains the Country with the Most Users on the CMC Website

Surprisingly, India is in second place.

6. The Most Popular Sector: Meme Gradually Demonstrates Its Value (Blue Area in the Chart Below)

12 Memes Telling the Story of a Year's Opportunities and Fun

There were many opportunities last year. If you caught 1-2 of them, your story would certainly be quite different.

And if you missed too many opportunities, you can review the timeline and development of opportunities in these Meme images.

· January: SEC is slower than hackers. The SEC Official Twitter account was hacked to post a "Bitcoin ETF approved" message, and the SEC actually announced the ETF approval a few hours later...

· February: Did the ETF approval lead to a price surge? In fact, BTC was quite sluggish in February.

· March: BTC hit a new high of $73K, while Degens were busy claiming airdrops.

· April: BTC holders were explaining the meaning of the halving to their friends and family, or just dragging people to the halving.

· May: Heard you're bearish on Ethereum? The SEC approved an ETH ETF!

· June: Iggy launched a token, opening the door for celebrity coins, so call her "Mother".

· July: The "Is Craig Wright Satoshi?" debate resurfaced, with the Craig Wright "Satoshi identity authentication" case.

· August: The French arrested the Tg founder, the community fermented, and related Memes emerged, actually leading the trend of political coins.

· September: That man, CZ, is back! The market is also looking up.

· October: The "October must rise" rule was postponed...

· November: Congressman Kwon returned, and crypto has a place in Washington and the White House.

· December: Rate cut expectations are gradually being realized, and the crypto market seems to have found a savior.

Looking ahead to 2025, what are your choices and predictions?

In this section, CoinMarketCap held an open vote, giving users the power to decide the 2025 outlook, essentially a market survey to see which tracks and projects the community is bullish on.

Meanwhile, the outlook section is designed with the following topics. Which projects do you think will come out on top?

· Which projects will make big news this year?

Shortlist: ETH, PEPE, Monad, Fartcoin, World Liberty Financial (Trump-related).

· Which narrative will explode this year?

Shortlist: NFT/Gaming, Anti-Quantum Computing Tokens, Crypto IPOs, RWA and AI Agents.

· Which asset will be approved for an ETF?

· Who will quietly enter the top 30 by market cap?

Shortlist: Virtuals, FET, Pengu, Ethena, Ondo.

· Who will see their old coins bloom?

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