The crypto market performed strongly in March , with Bitcoin hitting another all-time high. Ethereum prices have steadily climbed, while the Cancun upgrade has significantly reduced transaction costs. The Meme craze has swept across the Solana chain, and its powerful wealth creation effect has ignited market enthusiasm, and its influence has also spread to other public chains, such as Base.
AI, Meme and TON are the main recent forces in promoting the large-scale adoption of blockchain . At the same time, the public chain is sparing no effort to expand the Web3 game ecosystem, which is increasingly valued by the market as a key driving force for the large-scale adoption of blockchain.
The data for this report comes from the public chain research page of Footprint Analytics. 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 instantly.
Crypto Market Overview
Cryptocurrency markets had a strong performance in March, driven largely by expectations of lower interest rates despite strong overall economic performance. This prospect adds to inflation concerns, making assets such as Bitcoin and gold more attractive.
The AI industry has become the focus of the market. Nvidia released 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 related to the collapse of the FTX exchange and Alameda Research in November 2022. Although the story of SBF and FTX may have come to an end, the encryption field still faces serious regulatory challenges. It is worth mentioning that at the end of the month, news came out that KuCoin is facing legal action from the U.S. Department of Justice and other departments. Subsequently, KuCoin faced massive fund outflows.
Public chain overview
As March comes to an end, the total market value of public chain cryptocurrencies has 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 "breakouts" and "fluctuations." Starting the month at $61,213, it quickly surpassed the previous high of $69,000 and hit an all-time high of $73,068 on March 14. Although it fell back 15.1% to $62,047 in the middle of the month, it recovered its losses at the end of the month and finally closed at $69,656.
Bitcoin price changes are closely related to the performance of the U.S. Bitcoin Spot ETF. The price pullback in mid-month was mainly affected by slowing inflows into Bitcoin spot ETFs and traditional traders reducing leverage. However, market expectations for the Bitcoin halving event in April have maintained its upward momentum.
In comparison, Ethereum’s gains were relatively solid, starting at $3,344 and closing at $3,648. Ethereum, while slightly lagging behind Bitcoin, has maintained steady growth, in part because prospects for U.S. spot ETF approval appear unclear. The Ethereum Cancun upgrade on March 13 was designed to reduce Ethereum’s transaction costs, thereby boosting activity within its ecosystem.
The token prices of BNB and Solana both achieved significant growth, with increases of 48.8% and 56.0% respectively, pushing their token market capitalization shares to increase by approximately 1% during the month.
In March, AI-related tokens achieved significant growth. Sam Altman has re-entered the OpenAI board of directors after being fired and rehired. This news has had a positive impact on AI-related tokens. In addition, market expectations for the Nvidia GTC conference have further boosted the hype atmosphere, which has brought benefits to projects announced to participate in the conference. It is worth noting that the NEAR chain’s token price and market capitalization both surged by 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 and easier to understand and accept. The growing interest in AI concept tokens is further driving the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Memes have 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 quickly creating wealth and triggers widespread FOMO sentiment in the market. As an entry point that is easy to access and understand, Meme helps lower the threshold and attract more people to explore the Web3 field.
Memes
TON (The Open Network) and the social app Telegram closely connected to it have had a significant impact in driving mass adoption. Notably, in March, Telegram announced the expansion of its ad platform to nearly a hundred new countries. This move, 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, Toncoin doubled in price and market cap, reaching all-time highs. Leveraging Telegram's huge user base and seamless integration of dApps, TON simplifies Web3 access. Combined with Telegram’s strong marketing capabilities, the TON ecosystem is expected to become a key force in promoting large-scale blockchain adoption.
TON Blockchain
At the end of March, the public chain TVL reached 8.13 billion US dollars, with Ethereum, Tron and BNB chains ranking among the top three.
Solana's TVL grew significantly, reaching $3.59 billion, which was twice what it was in February. This growth has been driven largely by the meme craze, which has dramatically boosted online activity and attracted significant capital inflows. DeFi dApps on Solana, such as DEX aggregator Jupiter, have received extremely high attention and user participation.
Layer 2
With the crypto market booming and aided by 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, and together occupy approximately 70% of the market share.
Base's TVL achieved an increase of 87.3%, while active users (wallets) also increased by 29.6%, mainly due to the attraction of Meme coins like $DEGEN. In addition, the smart wallet launched by Coinbase further promotes the activity of its ecosystem. This smart wallet leverages 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 fees on its Layer 2 network dropped significantly. Among them, Arbitrum and Starknet on-chain transaction costs have been reduced by more than 95%. This significantly reduced fee marks the official entry of the Ethereum ecosystem into the “penny era.”
The discussion about Layer 3 is becoming increasingly fierce, and people from all walks of life have expressed their opinions. Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron recently questioned the necessity of Layer 3 and explained why Polygon decided not to develop Layer 3. At the same time, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, also expressed his opinion. He pointed out that Layer 3 networks are not mainly used for expansion kits; instead, their main purpose is to provide "customized functions" for Layer 2. to improve its performance.
Blockchain games
In March, game player rankings showed that Ronin , Polygon and BNB chains were the platforms with the largest number of active players, accounting for 35.4%, 20.9% and 10.8% of the market 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 chains dominate. In March, Ronin's trading volume reached $81.7 million, a month-on-month increase of 35.1%, while the BNB chain experienced a 13% decline. With less than 10 games, Ronin's market share expansion is strong. As Ronin continues to add new games, its growth potential is expected to further increase.
Competition in the public chain field is becoming increasingly fierce, and major public chains have increased 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 its gaming projects on the blockchain. Of this amount, 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 actions 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 game 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 game industry dynamics: " Web3 Game Report March 2024: Market Trends and Investment Dynamics ".
Public chain investment and financing situation
In March, the public chain field ushered in significant growth momentum, with a total of 23 financing events taking place, with a total investment amount of US$380 million, an increase of 160.2% compared to 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" trend: 8 of them involved Layer 1, 7 focused on Bitcoin Layer 2, and the other 8 focused mainly on Ethereum Layer 2. Although the highest disclosed investment amount in Bitcoin Layer 2 is only US$10 million, the Bitcoin ecosystem has gained more and more attention.
Token sales are becoming a popular way to obtain investment and financing.
Recently, Berachain, which successfully completed financing through token sales, has reached a valuation of US$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, selling approximately 19.5 million OP tokens. The sale was sourced from the unallocated OP token pool and totaled nearly $89 million based on current market value. The tokens were purchased by an undisclosed buyer and will be subject to a two-year lock-up period.
Key news
With the popularity of Meme coins, 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 the blockchain linear expansion suite.
Google already supports searching for Bitcoin, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, Polygon and Fantom on-chain wallet addresses.
BNB chain launched the “Rollup as a Service” (RaaS) solution.
