Decoding the Cryptocurrency Market in 2024 and 2025
After reading numerous institutional annual reviews and outlooks, are you feeling a bit fatigued? Recently, CoinMarketCap also released a 2024-25 Cryptocurrency Market Yearbook, which summarizes the major innovations, market-shaking moments, and unforgettable milestones of the past year, while also providing a glimpse into the next 25 years.
However, what’s interesting is that this yearbook is vivid and interactive: In the review section, CoinMarketCap presents the significant events of the past year in a more visually appealing, lively, and engaging manner. In the outlook section, different from the expert predictions of other institutions, CoinMarketCap hands the decision-making power over to the market – you get to vote for the trends that may occur in the next 25 years. For example, do you think projects like the pure meme coin Fartcoin or World Liberty Financial related to Donald Trump will make big news in 25 years?
In addition, the yearbook contains several valuable charts and analyses. DeepTechFlow has carefully curated and interpreted them, as presented below.
Suits & Ties vs. Laser Eyes: Both are Winners
Throughout 2024, as you were contemplating the rise and fall of certain cryptocurrencies, the yearbook captured a more macro trend in the cryptocurrency market – “Suits & Ties vs. Laser Eyes.” This is indeed a precise cultural contrast.
Suits & Ties represent the traditional financial world (Wall Street), symbolizing conservatism, professionalism, and well-established financial institutions. Typical representatives include BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.
Laser Eyes, on the other hand, are the iconic cultural symbol of the cryptocurrency community, originating from Bitcoin supporters adding red laser eyes to their profile pictures on social media. They represent cryptocurrency believers and supporters of emerging digital assets.
In 2024, both of these seemingly opposing groups were winners. The two groups, which were previously at odds in terms of asset significance, achieved true integration: Traditional financial institutions, such as BlackRock, began launching Bitcoin/Ethereum ETFs, and meme coins reached a market value of billions of dollars, gaining mainstream recognition.
Perhaps Wall Street and Web3 are no longer adversaries but partners influencing each other at the same negotiation table. Shifting from past opposition to dividing the cake, the cryptocurrency market has entered a new stage of maturity.
Top Cryptocurrency Story of the Year: The Rise of TON
In the wave of AI agents, did you forget about TON’s soaring performance last year?
Telegram’s corresponding L1, TON, experienced astronomical growth, with users increasing from 100,000 to an astonishing 17.4 million, ranking 8th on CoinMarketCap. With 1,400 dApps and seamless integration with Telegram’s 950 million users, TON has proven itself to be more than just another Layer 1 blockchain; it is a movement.
This movement even extended beyond the cryptocurrency community. On August 24, 2024, Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, was arrested in Paris and faced charges related to platform activities. This news could have caused shockwaves of uncertainty, but it ignited a fire instead. The Telegram community united, expressing support on social platforms and launching a meme project, becoming a rallying cry for justice.
The yearbook from CoinMarketCap also highlighted the value of this event:
“This is a declaration of the cryptocurrency spirit. It reminds people that decentralization is power and that the purest technology is a tool for freedom, not a tool for wrongdoing. At that moment, the TON community showed the world that it is not just a blockchain; it is a revolution driven by resilience, unity, and unwavering belief.”
Although TON is no longer in the spotlight, it is still one of the many significant events of last year.
Top Asset Categories: Meme Coins Leading the Way
Considering their popularity, the yearbook identified the following asset categories and projects as top performers:
Memes:
MEW: The fifth-largest memecoin, utilizing unique tokenomics with 90% of LP tokens burned, promoting a stable price floor and market confidence.
Popcat: The first cat-themed memecoin to reach a market value of $1 billion on Solana, achieving a valuation of $120 million and pioneering the era of “cat coins.”
WIF: Becoming the third-largest memecoin, trailing only DOGE and SHIB, within four months. Its market value reached $3 billion, driven by community engagement and Elon Musk’s endorsement.
Application Areas:
Polymarket: Injecting $3.3 billion into the 2024 US presidential election, leading decentralized prediction markets, and dominating the field with automated smart contracts and KYC-free methods.
Pump.fun: Revolutionary changes occurred in memecoin creation on Solana, fostering the development of over 3 million tokens and attracting 150,000 users while generating substantial revenue. The platform’s impact is significant but controversial, as it sometimes fuels the most extreme meme culture.
Binance Launchpool: Enhancing user participation through innovative token farming mechanisms, including successful launches of Notcoin, Scroll, and Catizen.
Emerging Stars:
Story Protocol: Pioneering blockchain-based IP management, attracting over 100 projects and fundamentally changing creator rights through programmable IP licensing infrastructure.
Monad: The next-generation Layer 1 achieving 10,000 TPS and confirming transactions within 1 second. It raised $225 million and introduced the innovative MonadBFT consensus mechanism.
Berachain: A groundbreaking Layer 1 with liquidity proof-of-stake consensus, launching the Artio testnet, attracting 230 active development teams through unique DeFi integration.
While due to space limitations, some projects within different ecosystems are not elaborated upon, the nominees are as follows:
Infrastructure:
SUI: Building the world’s largest open-source AI model with 1.4T parameters, launching the Nightshade 2.0 upgrade, achieving a 400% increase in transaction speed through innovative sharding.
Wormhole: Building the world’s largest open-source AI model with 1.4T parameters, launching the Nightshade 2.0 upgrade, achieving a 400% increase in transaction speed through innovative sharding.
Arkham: Introducing an on-chain sustainable transaction platform utilizing intelligence data, pioneering blockchain-based analysis of physical assets.
Note: The selection of all these projects represents the perspective of the yearbook. Interested readers can visit the original website to view the introduction of each project, accompanied by a small video narrative.
Six Treasure Charts Taking You Through 2024
As is well-known, CoinMarketCap has a knack for data analysis and visualizing in graphs. The yearbook also selected six charts that portray the changes in the 2024 cryptocurrency market from different data dimensions.
Top-performing and worst-performing tracks: Smart Contracts and Storage
Smart contract-related projects took the lead with a 6000% return rate, while the worst-performing track was storage, with an annual return rate of -24%.
Bitcoin’s post-halving rise continues
After Bitcoin’s halving in 2024, with a price of around $63,000, we have all witnessed its journey from an experiment to a $100,000 asset over the course of 16 years.
Learning from history, the turning point for the bear market doesn’t seem to have arrived yet
Bitcoin and the overall market generally go through a cycle of 3-4 years. From the chart below, it is clear that during the black line representing the new cycle in 2024, Bitcoin’s price did not exhibit a significant downward trend.
MicroStrategy leading the way – A global overview of institutional/national Bitcoin holdings
MicroStrategy leads other institutions with holdings of 440,000 Bitcoin, surpassing the holdings of any single country. Meanwhile, both China and the United States have not widened the gap in terms of Bitcoin holdings.
The United States still has the highest number of CoinMarketCap website users
Surprisingly, the second-highest is India.
The most popular track: Meme coins gradually proving their value (indicated by the blue area in the chart below)
Twelve Memes Tell the Story of Opportunities and Fun throughout the Year
There were many opportunities last year. Seizing one or two of them would certainly change your story. If you missed out on too many opportunities, take a look at the context and development of opportunities in these meme images.
January: SEC slower than hackers. SEC’s official Twitter was hacked, announcing that the Bitcoin ETF was approved. A few hours later, the SEC officially announced the ETF approval…
February: Will BTC rise after the ETF approval? In fact, Bitcoin was quite stagnant in February.
March: BTC hits a new high of $73,000, while degens are busy with airdrops.
April: BTC holders explain the significance of the halving to their friends and family, or persuade them to join the halving.
May: Heard you’re bearish on Ethereum? SEC approves ETH ETF!
June: Iggy launches their own coin, starting the trend of celebrity coins. Call her “Mother.”
July: The annual “real vs. fake Satoshi Nakamoto” post returns, along with Craig Wright’s “Satoshi Nakamoto identity verification” case.
August: Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, arrested in France. The community reacts, and related memes emerge, leading the trend of political coins.
September: That man, CZ, is back! The market starts to pick up.
October: The “October always rises” law is delayed…
November: Comrade Trump returns, and cryptocurrencies gain a place in Washington and the White House.
December: The expected interest rate cuts gradually materialize, and the cryptocurrency market seems to see its savior.
Looking ahead to 2025, what are your choices and predictions?
In this section, CoinMarketCap conducted an open vote, giving users the decision-making power for the 25-year outlook. It’s like a market survey to see which tracks and projects people are optimistic about. The outlook section includes the following topics. Which projects do you think will come out on top?
Which projects will make big news this year?
Nominees: ETH, PEPE, Monad, Fartcoin, World Liberty Financial (related to Donald Trump).
Which narrative will cause a sensation this year?
Nominees: NFT/games, quantum-resistant tokens, crypto IPOs, RWA, and AI agents.
Which asset will be approved for an ETF?
Which project will stealthily enter the top 30 market cap?
Nominees: Virtuals, FET, Pengu, Ethena, Ondo.
Which old coin will flourish?
Please note that the selection of all these projects is based on the perspective of the yearbook. Interested readers can visit the original website to view the introduction of each project, along with a thoughtful video narrative.