Author: Stella L ( stella@footprint.network )
Data source: Footprint Analytics public chain research page
In July, the cryptocurrency market was active and volatile, reflecting the overall trend of the global financial market. The listing of the spot Ethereum ETP in the United States, coupled with former US President Trump's high praise for Bitcoin, shows the resilience and huge growth potential of the cryptocurrency industry. The market situation is complex and changeable. The price of Bitcoin has gradually stabilized, while Solana has become one of the most outstanding currencies; at the same time, Ethereum has encountered a certain degree of downward pressure after the listing of the ETP. During this wave of fluctuations, the total market value of public chain cryptocurrencies has achieved a small increase, mainly driven by key projects such as Bitcoin and Solana. As competition in the Layer 2 field becomes increasingly fierce, the emergence of innovative projects and emerging forces is reshaping the industry's competitive landscape.
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
In July, volatility across financial markets increased. Large technology stocks and AI-related stocks that led the gains in the first half of the year performed poorly. The crypto industry made important progress, including the launch of spot Ethereum exchange-traded products (ETPs) and the positive endorsement of Bitcoin by former US Republican presidential candidate and former President Trump.
July's price performance showed a divergent trend. At the end of the month, the impact of the German government's Bitcoin sales weakened (ended on July 13), and Mt Gox's repayment distribution to its users had limited impact on the market. Bitcoin fluctuated during the month but ended July with a small increase. In addition to Bitcoin, Solana's performance was particularly eye-catching, with a monthly increase of 25%. In contrast, Ethereum's price fell after the launch of spot Ethereum ETPs in the US market. Although the launch of these ETPs supported the price of Ethereum, the subsequent selling pressure caused the price to fall.
Public Chain Overview
As of the end of July, the total market value of public chain cryptocurrencies rose by 1.2% from June to $1.98 trillion. The market leaders are Bitcoin , Ethereum , BNB Chain and Solana, with market shares of 64.8%, 19.7%, 4.3% and 4.1% respectively. Bitcoin's share increased by 1.5% in absolute value, Solana increased by 0.6%, while Ethereum decreased by 1.5%.
Data source: Market capitalization of public chain tokens in July 2024
In July, the cryptocurrency market experienced significant fluctuations. Bitcoin started at $62,923 at the beginning of the month and closed at $64,938 at the end of the month, achieving a 3.2% increase. On July 5, Bitcoin hit a monthly low of $56,608, and reached a high of $68,806 on July 27. Ethereum opened at $3,438 and fell to $3,243 at the end of the month, a drop of 5.7%. On July 7, Ethereum hit a monthly low of $2,939 and reached a high of $3,542 on July 21.
Data source: Bitcoin and Ethereum price trends
Solana’s token price rose 18.2% and its market cap grew 18.9%. The meme coin craze continued with brisk on-chain activity. For example, several Neiro tokens surged after the owner of the Doge Memecoin Inspiration announced that he had adopted Neiro, a 10-year-old rescue Shiba Inu.
Kaspa continues to perform strongly, with the token KAS price rising 14.5% and the market capitalization increasing 15.7%. KAS hit a new all-time high of over $0.2 in July. The blockDAG (Block Directed Acyclic Graph) technology has received increasing attention, especially after Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital (MARA) announced last month that it would diversify its mining operations and expand to Kaspa.
Data source: Public chain token price and market value at the end of July 2024
In terms of total locked value (TVL), the TVL of public chains reached $76.5 billion at the end of July, which was basically the same as in June. Ethereum, TRON, and BNB chains continued to lead in TVL.
TON has become the fifth largest chain by token market value, but there is still a lot of room for growth in its DeFi field, and its TVL ranks ninth among public chains at $770 million. Two decentralized exchanges, STON.fi and DeDust, account for more than 60% of TVL.
The TVL of the Core blockchain grew by 122.5% throughout the month, helped by the launch of the Dual Staking model, which rewards users who stake Bitcoin in Core for a long time, increasing their BTC staking rewards when they also stake CORE.
Data source: TVL of public chains at the end of July 2024
In a month of volatility and mixed price performance, Polymarket, a decentralized prediction market on Polygon , stood out. Polymarket allows users to build portfolios based on their predictions and receive rewards if they are correct. Using blockchain technology, Polymarket ensures transparent, secure, and immutable transactions on a wide range of topics including current major events, politics, and public health issues. The US election brought additional attention to Polymarket, and its TVL doubled in July.
Development of major Layer 1 public chains in July 2024
BNB Chain
On July 18, BNB Chain officially announced that it will hold the "Become a Champion Builder" hackathon in the third quarter of 2024, with a prize pool of more than US$500,000.
BNB Chain's second Sunset fork plan has been completed.
Solana
Solana launches $400,000 grant program for developers of Solana Actions and Blinks Tools.
NEAR
Grayscale officially launched the decentralized artificial intelligence fund Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund LLC, in which Near is the highest weighted asset in the fund.
Sui
Sui announced the launch of the Sui Index Framework, providing customizable access to Sui on-chain data.
Polygon
Polygon launches a new ZK proof system “Plonky3” as an open source toolkit, which will be more universal than “Plonky2”.
Move language developer Movement Labs joins Polygon's AggLayer.
Ronin
Sky Mavis released a review of the first half of 2024. In the past 6 months, more than 3 million users have downloaded the Ronin wallet, and RON's daily active addresses have soared to a record high of 1.5 million.
Ton
The TON blockchain will release a new Layer 2 network based on Polygon technology.
The TON Foundation has partnered with Mocaverse, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, to launch a $20 million ecosystem development plan.
Core
Core announced that Animoca Brands has launched a validator node on the chain to support Core’s security and decentralization.
The Core Foundation announced a dual staking model to increase Bitcoin staking returns.
Layer 2
In July, Ethereum Layer 2 experienced minor volatility as Ethereum prices retreated after the launch of spot Ethereum ETPs in the U.S. market. Arbitrum One , Optimism , and Base led in terms of TVL market share, holding 59.8%, 20.2%, and 8.27%, respectively, but their monthly growth rates were all less than 5%.
As on-chain activity declined after the airdrop, Blast’s TVL fell by 14.3% and zkSync Era’s TVL fell by 11.5%.
Scroll’s TVL grew 13.2%, driven by activity on Scroll Canvas, a platform for collecting and displaying achievements, statuses, and on-chain certificates in the Scroll ecosystem. Users can interact with various projects in the ecosystem to earn achievements in the form of “badges.”
Data source: Ethereum Layer 2 Overview in July 2024 - Rollups (Bridge Related Indicators)
On the other hand, Bitcoin scaling solutions, including Layer 2 and sidechains, continued to grow in July, although the total TVL is lower than the high in June. Merlin , Bitlayer, and Rootstock account for the largest TVL market share, at 44.0%, 19.6%, and 10.3%, respectively.
Solv Protocol became the largest DeFi protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem at the end of July, with a TVL of $570 million, accounting for 32.3% of the total TVL of Bitcoin scaling solutions.
Data source: Bitcoin Ecosystem Public Chain TVL
The Layer 2 track is becoming increasingly competitive. A new project called TON Applications Chain (TAC) is developing a Layer 2 solution for the TON blockchain ecosystem. Backed by The Open Platform, an investor focused on the TON blockchain, TAC will utilize Polygon’s Chain Development Kit (CDK).
Meanwhile, the first Move EVM Layer2 Movement blockchain launched the public testnet Parthenon, which was officially launched on July 30. Movement’s MOVEDROP project allows the community to participate in the process from testnet to mainnet.
Development of major Layer 2 public chains in July 2024
Arbitrum
The Arbitrum community has launched a proposal to vote on “allowing new Orbit chains to be deployed on any blockchain”, planning to open up access to deploy Orbit chains on networks other than Ethereum.
Optimism
Optimism announced the results of Retro Funding 4, and plans to provide 10 million OP rewards to 207 projects, of which Zora and Layer 3 received 500,000 OPs respectively.
Starknet
Eduard, founder of Starknet derivatives trading protocol ZKX, announced that ZKX will cease operations.
Base
US politicians can accept cryptocurrency donations on the Base chain.
Merlin Chain
Merlin Chain has teamed up with Ordzaar and OrdinSwap to launch the “Fourth Major Ordinal” whitelist campaign.
Rootstock
Rootstock announced that it will host its first Ecosystem Summit on August 1st.
Blockchain Games
In July, a total of 1,588 games were active on major blockchain networks. BNB Chain, Polygon , and Ethereum dominated the market, accounting for 21.7%, 19.0%, and 15.1% of the market share, respectively.
Ronin , opBNB, and Saakuru Verse lead in on-chain DAU, with average daily DAUs of 1.1 million, 479,600, and 354,500, respectively. Their DAU market shares at the end of July were 32.6%, 18.7%, and 3.4%, respectively.
Data source: Daily active users of various public chain blockchain games
Ronin's DAU market share increased significantly from 18.6% on July 1 to 32.6% on July 31, thanks to the recovery of Pixels data and the launch of new games Lumiterra and Fight League . In addition, games on Ronin performed well in user retention and frequently appeared on the weekly new user retention rankings . For example, in the last week of July, five games ranked in the top ten for new user retention.
opBNB's DAU share rose from 13.1% to 18.7% in July, thanks to the growing popularity of its games MEET48 and SERAPH: In The Darkness. In particular, SERAPH: In The Darkness, a dark fantasy ARPG game, has gained significant attention on opBNB since its launch in mid-July.
Oasys Layer 2 Saakuru Verse saw a significant increase in DAU in the last 10 days of June, but growth slowed in July, with DAU market share falling from 14.1% at the beginning of the month to 3.4% at the end of the month. Despite this, Saakuru still maintains the third highest average DAU among all chains. Saakuru's unique proxy model, where the chain operator (AAG) bears the transaction costs, enables users and developers to complete interactions without incurring gas fees, significantly lowering the entry barrier.
Base's DAU soared from 8.2K to 222.5K in one month, with an average DAU of 101.6K. This growth was mainly driven by the game BLOCKLORDS Dynasty.
For more blockchain game industry trends, please read " July 2024 Blockchain Game Research Report: Challenges and Opportunities of Market Volatility and Data Differentiation ".
Financing
In July, the public chain industry recorded 9 rounds of financing events, totaling US$570 million, a 20.1% decrease from June. Two of the events did not disclose the amount, and no Layer 1 announced a new financing round.
Public chain financing events in July 2024 (data source: crypto-fundraising.info )
Igloo, the parent company of Pudgy Penguins, has raised $11 million in a funding round led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. Igloo has formed a new Cube Labs to develop Abstract, a consumer-oriented Layer 2 blockchain built on Matter Labs’ ZK Stack and EigenLayer’s EigenDA. This new blockchain aims to make decentralized application development easier, cheaper, and more secure.
As the number of Layer 2 solutions continues to grow, the infrastructure that supports these Layer 2s is becoming a good business. In July, Ethereum Rollup deployment platform Caldera and Web3 AI infrastructure developer Network3 received new financing.
