As the meme coin craze spread, Solana’s search volume on Google surged, reaching a peak of 100.
Author: stella@footprint.network
Data source: Footprint Analytics public chain research page
Cover: Photo by Artem Bryzgalov on Unsplash
In March, the crypto market performed strongly, with Bitcoin hitting a new all-time high. Ethereum prices climbed steadily, while the Cancun upgrade significantly reduced transaction costs. The Solana chain meme craze swept in, and its powerful wealth-creating effect ignited market enthusiasm, and its influence also spread to other public chains, such as Base.
In terms of promoting the mass adoption of blockchain, AI, Meme and TON are the main forces in the near future. At the same time, the public chain is making every effort to expand the Web3 gaming ecosystem, which, as a key driving force for the mass adoption of blockchain, is gaining increasing attention from the market.
The data for this report comes from Footprint Analytics' public chain research page. 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 in real time.
Crypto Market Overview
Cryptocurrency markets had a strong month in March, helped by expectations of lower interest rates despite a strong overall economy. That outlook has heightened inflation concerns, making assets like bitcoin and gold more attractive.
The AI industry has become the focus of the market. Nvidia released the Blackwell GPU and GB200 super chip at the AI event GTC 2024, which not only ignited the enthusiasm of the US and global stock markets, but also attracted widespread attention in the cryptocurrency market, driving the rise of the crypto AI sector.
At the end of March, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for fraud in the collapse of FTX Exchange and Alameda Research in November 2022. Although the story of SBF and FTX may have come to an end, the crypto space still faces severe regulatory challenges. It is worth mentioning that at the end of the month, news came out that KuCoin was facing legal action from the US Department of Justice and other departments. As a result, KuCoin faced a large-scale capital outflow.
Public Chain Overview
As March came to an end, the total market value of public chain cryptocurrencies climbed to $2.2 trillion, an increase of 15.8% compared to February. In this wave of growth, Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain and Solana performed particularly well, with market shares of 63.2%, 19.7%, 4.2% and 4.1% respectively.
Bitcoin has experienced significant ups and downs between "breakthroughs" and "volatility". It started the month at $61,213, quickly broke through the previous high of $69,000, and hit a record high of $73,068 on March 14. Although it fell back 15.1% to $62,047 in the middle of the month, it recovered the lost ground at the end of the month and finally closed at $69,656.
Bitcoin price movements are closely tied to the performance of US Bitcoin spot ETFs. The mid-month price decline was mainly affected by the slowdown in Bitcoin spot ETF inflows and the reduction of leverage by traditional traders. However, market expectations for the Bitcoin halving event in April maintained its upward momentum.
In contrast, Ethereum’s gains were relatively solid, starting at $3,344 and closing at $3,648. Ethereum’s gains, while slightly less than Bitcoin’s, have remained steady, in part because the prospect of U.S. spot ETF approval seems uncertain. The March 13 Ethereum Cancun upgrade was designed to reduce Ethereum’s transaction costs, which in turn boosted activity within its ecosystem.
BNB and Solana both saw significant token price growth, up 48.8% and 56.0% respectively, driving their token market capitalization share up by approximately 1% over the month.
AI-related tokens saw significant growth in March. Sam Altman’s re-entry to the OpenAI board after a firing and re-hiring incident had a positive impact on AI-related tokens. In addition, the market’s expectations for the Nvidia GTC conference further fueled the hype and brought benefits to projects that announced their participation in the conference. Notably, the NEAR chain’s token price and market value both soared 84%.
The widespread popularity of AI applications has not only deepened the public's understanding of AI, but also made the concept of "AI + encryption" more popular, easier to understand and accept. AI concept tokens are gaining more and more attention, further promoting the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Meme has also played an important role in driving mass adoption in the crypto world. Recently, Solana has attracted much attention due to the surge in Meme-related activities. The prices of tokens such as $BOME and $SLERF have risen rapidly, attracting the active participation of a large number of community members. This phenomenon fully demonstrates the potential of Meme in creating wealth quickly and has caused a general FOMO sentiment in the market. As an easy-to-access and understandable entry point, Meme helps lower the threshold and attract more people to explore the Web3 field.
TON (The Open Network) and its closely associated social application Telegram have had a significant impact in driving mass adoption. In particular, in March, Telegram announced the expansion of its advertising platform to nearly 100 new countries. This move, as an important part of Telegram's monetization strategy, allows public channel owners to earn up to 50% of advertising revenue, with all transactions conducted through TON. This move has greatly promoted TON's on-chain activities. In March, the price and market value of Toncoin both doubled to an all-time high. With Telegram's huge user base and seamless integration of dApps, TON simplifies the access to Web3. Combined with Telegram's strong marketing capabilities, the TON ecosystem is expected to become a key force in driving mass adoption of blockchain.
At the end of March, the TVL of public chains reached US$8.13 billion, with Ethereum, Tron and BNB chains ranking in the top three.
Solana’s TVL has achieved significant growth, reaching $3.59 billion, which is twice the figure in February. This growth is mainly driven by the meme craze, which has greatly increased the activity of online activities and attracted a large amount of capital inflows. DeFi dApps on Solana, such as DEX aggregator Jupiter, have received extremely high attention and user engagement.
Layer 2
With the booming crypto market and the help of the Cancun upgrade, Ethereum Layer 2's on-chain activity and TVL have reached new heights. Among them, Arbitrum One and Optimism performed particularly well, with TVL increasing by 26.4% and 7.2% respectively, together accounting for about 70% of the market share.
Base's TVL grew by 87.3%, while active users (wallets) grew by 29.6%, mainly due to the appeal of meme coins like $DEGEN. In addition, the launch of the Smart Wallet by Coinbase further boosted the activity of its ecosystem. This Smart Wallet uses account abstraction (AA) technology to simplify the user registration process through touch ID or Google account integration, thereby greatly improving Base's user acquisition capabilities.
After Ethereum completed the Cancun upgrade, the average transaction fee of its Layer 2 network has dropped significantly. Among them, the transaction costs of Arbitrum and Starknet chains have been reduced by more than 95%. This significant reduction in fees marks the official entry of the Ethereum ecosystem into the "one cent era".
The discussion about Layer 3 is getting more intense, and people from all walks of life have expressed their opinions. Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, recently questioned the necessity of Layer 3 and explained why Polygon decided not to develop Layer 3. Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also expressed his views, pointing out that Layer 3 networks are not primarily used for expansion; instead, their main purpose is to provide "customized functions" for Layer 2 to improve its performance.
Blockchain Games
In March, the game player rankings showed that Ronin, Polygon and BNB Chain were the platforms with the largest number of active players, accounting for 35.4%, 20.9% and 10.8% of the market share respectively. It is worth mentioning that Ronin and Polygon further consolidated their leading positions, with their market shares increasing by 6.3% and 7.8% respectively compared to February.
In terms of transaction volume ranking, Ethereum, Ronin, and BNB Chain dominate. In March, Ronin's transaction volume reached $81.7 million, a month-on-month increase of 35.1%, while BNB Chain saw a 13% decline. With less than 10 games, Ronin has a strong momentum in market share expansion. As Ronin continues to add new games, its growth potential is expected to increase further.
Competition in the public chain field is becoming increasingly fierce, and major public chains have increased their investment and are committed to promoting the prosperity of the Web3 game ecosystem.
The Arbitrum Foundation has announced a proposal to distribute 200 million $ARB tokens over two years to support gaming projects on its blockchain. Of these, 160 million $ARB will be allocated to game publishers and developers, while the remaining funds are planned to be used to improve infrastructure. This proposal requires approval from the Arbitrum DAO.
At the same time, the Starknet Foundation is also taking active action and has established a dedicated gaming committee to promote the development of the Starknet gaming ecosystem. The committee plans to distribute 50 million $STRK tokens to support gaming projects recognized by the committee, especially those that can incentivize game development and player participation.
You can read the blockchain game monthly report from Footprint Analytics to learn more about the dynamics of the game industry: "Web3 Game Report March 2024: Market Trends and Investment Dynamics".
Public chain investment and financing situation
In March, the public chain sector ushered in a significant growth momentum, with 23 financing events and a total investment of US$380 million, an increase of 160.2% from February. In this round of investment boom, Optimism, Berachain and Eclipse performed particularly well, receiving huge financial support of US$89 million, US$69 million and US$50 million respectively.
Among these 23 financing events, the distribution of funds showed a "three-legged tripod" trend: 8 of them involved Layer 1, 7 focused on Bitcoin Layer 2, and the other 8 focused on Ethereum Layer 2. Although the highest disclosed investment in Bitcoin Layer 2 was only US$10 million, the Bitcoin ecosystem has received more and more attention.
Token sales are becoming an increasingly popular way to obtain investment and financing.
Berachain, which recently successfully raised funds through a token sale, has a valuation of $1.5 billion, successfully joining the ranks of unicorns. This Cosmos-based and EVM-compatible platform focuses on DeFi transactions and plans to launch its mainnet in the second quarter of 2024.
The Optimism Foundation also announced a private token sale of approximately 19.5 million OP tokens. The sale was from the unallocated OP token pool and totaled nearly $89 million at current market value. The tokens were purchased by an undisclosed buyer and will be subject to a two-year lock-up period.
Key News
- As the meme coin craze spread, Solana’s search volume on Google surged, reaching a peak of 100.
- The Blast mainnet was officially launched on March 1.
- Bitcoin Layer 2 project BEVM announced its mainnet release plan.
- CyberConnect announced the launch of Ethereum Layer 2 network Cyber.
- Mysten Labs uses the technical prototype "Pilotfish" on Sui to prove the feasibility of linear expansion of blockchain.
- Google already supports searching for wallet addresses on Bitcoin, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, Polygon, and Fantom chains.
- BNB Chain launched a “Rollup as a Service” (RaaS) solution.
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