Decoding the 2024-25 Encryption Yearbook: New and old forces are on the card table together, 12 MEMEs link up the opportunities of the year

Author: Shenchao TechFlow

Are you a little tired of looking at the annual reviews and prospects of so many organizations?

Recently, CoinMarketCap also released a 2024-25 encryption market yearbook (Yearbook) , sorting out the major innovations, market-shaking moments and unforgettable milestones in the past year, and also looking forward to the next 25 years.

But what’s interesting is that this yearbook appears lively and interactive:

In the review section, CMC uses a more design, lively and out-of-the-box style to bring the major events of the past year to life on paper; in the outlook section, unlike the expert predictions of institutions, CMC leaves the decision-making power to the market. --- It's up to you to vote for the trends that are likely to happen in 25 years.

For example, which projects do you think will make big news in 25 years? Is it pure Meme Fartcoin, or Trump-related World Liberty Financial?

In addition, there are many collectible charts and analyzes throughout the yearbook, which have been compiled and interpreted by Shenzhen TechFlow and presented as follows.

Suits and leather shoes VS laser eyes, both are winners

Throughout 2024, you may be thinking about the rise and fall of certain coins from the perspective of leeks; and amid the turbulence of the entire crypto market, the yearbook summarizes a more macro trend--- " Suits & Ties VS Laser Eyes" (Suits and leather shoes VS laser eyes).

This is indeed a very accurate cultural comparison.

Suits & Ties represent the traditional financial world (Wall Street) and symbolize conservative, professional, and established financial institutions; typical representatives include traditional financial institutions such as BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.

Laser Eyes is an iconic cultural symbol in the cryptocurrency community. It originated from the meme of Bitcoin supporters adding red laser eyes to their avatars on social media. It represents cryptocurrency believers and emerging digital asset supporters.

In 2024, both groups of people are actually winners.

Two seemingly opposing groups have achieved true integration for the first time in terms of assets:

Traditional financial institutions (such as BlackRock) began to launch Bitcoin/Ethereum ETFs; Meme currency reached a billion-dollar market value and gained mainstream recognition.

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

From the past confrontation to each other's division of the pie, the cryptocurrency market has entered a new stage of maturity.

Best Crypto Story of the Year: The Rise of TON

In the wave of AI Agents, have you forgotten the success of TON last year?

Telegram’s corresponding L1 has seen astronomical growth: its users have increased 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 that it’s not just another Layer 1, it’s a movement.

And this movement also extends beyond the crypto community.

On August 24, 2024, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris and faced charges related to controlling activity on the platform. The news could have sent shockwaves of uncertainty, but instead it sparked a firestorm.

The Tg community united, posted messages of support on social platforms, and launched a Meme project to become a rallying cry for justice.

CMC’s yearbook also exalts the value of this event:

“It was a statement of crypto’s ethos. A reminder that decentralization is power and that technology in its purest form is a tool for freedom, not wrong. In that moment, the TON community showed the world that it is more than just a block chain; it is a revolution driven by resilience, solidarity and unshakable faith.”

Although TON is no longer in the limelight, it is still one of the many shining events last year.

Best Asset Class of the Year: Meme leads the way and a hundred flowers

bloom

Given their popularity , the asset classes and projects considered to be better performers in the yearbook are:

1. MEME:

• MEW: The fifth largest Memecoin, utilizing unique token economics, 90% of LP tokens are destroyed, promoting a stable price floor and market confidence.

• Popcat: The first cat-themed Memecoin reached a market capitalization of US$1 billion on Solana, achieving a valuation of US$120 million, and pioneered the "cat currency".

• WIF: Became the third largest meme coin in four months behind DOGE and SHIB, reaching a market cap of $3 billion, driven by community engagement and Elon Musk’s endorsement.

2. Application areas:

• Polymarket: Investing $3.3B in the 2024 US presidential election, leading the decentralized prediction market, dominating the field through smart contract automation and KYC-free methods.

• Pump.fun: Memecoin creation on Solana revolutionized the development of the 3M+ token, attracting 150,000 users while generating huge revenue. The platform has been influential but also controversial, sometimes fueling the worst meme culture.

• Binance Lauchpool: Enhance user engagement through innovative farming mechanisms for new tokens, including successful launches such as Notcoin, Scroll, and Catizen.

3. Rising stars to watch:

• Story Protocol: Pioneering blockchain-based IP management, attracting over 100 projects while revolutionizing creator rights with programmable IP licensing infrastructure.

• Monad: The next generation of Layer 1 achieves 10,000 TPS and is determined within 1 second, raising $225 million while introducing the innovative MonadBFT consensus mechanism.

• Berachain: Innovative Layer 1 with Proof-of-Liquidity Consensus Launches Artio Testnet, Attracting 230 Active Development Teams with Unique DeFi Integration.

And when it comes to innovation, from AI-enhanced DeFi to real-world asset platforms, from decentralized infrastructure to core scaling solutions – the following projects push the boundaries of what’s possible on-chain:

AI sector:

• Bittensor: Builds a framework for decentralized AI 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: Build the world's largest 1.4T parameter open source AI model, launch the Nightshade 2.0 upgrade, and achieve a 400% increase in transaction speed through innovative sharding.

DeFi sector:

• LIDO: Maintains liquidity staking dominance by staking 9.8 million ETH, launches institutional solution and reduces validator requirements from 32 ETH to 2.4 ETH.

• Pendle: Innovative revenue tokenization in DeFi, increasing TVL from $230 million to $1 billion through liquidity re-hypothecation of tokens and launch of Boros margin trading platform.

• EigenLayer: Dominated re-staking with 80% market share, TVL reached $12.9B, re-staking 4.5 million ETH, and completely changed the security model of Ethereum.

DeP IN sector:

• Render: The leading decentralized GPU rendering service has successfully migrated to Solana, expanding to live streaming and dynamic NFTs while serving major entertainment and construction customers.

• Arweave: a permanent storage solution that maintains stable growth amid market fluctuations and pioneers the "pay once, permanent storage" data storage model.

• Aethir: A decentralized cloud computing platform that turns GPU power into a shared resource for gaming and artificial intelligence, backed by a $100 million ecosystem fund and major partnerships with Nvidia and Filecoin.

RWA sector:

• Ondo: The first platform to tokenize more than $500 million in U.S. Treasuries in four months, capturing over 25% of the market through partnerships with BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase.

• Clearpool: Redefined institutional liquidity in DeFi with over $500 million in total loans and launched Ozean, a layer 2 network based on OP Stack that enables RWA yields.

• Ethena: The synthetic USD protocol becomes the fourth largest stablecoin, pioneering risk management through delta-neutral strategies for spot and short positions.

Infrastructure:

• SUI: Build the world's largest 1.4T parameter open source AI model, launch the Nightshade 2.0 upgrade, and achieve a 400% increase in transaction speed through innovative sharding.

• Wormhole: Build the world's largest 1.4T parameter open source AI model, launch the Nightshade 2.0 upgrade, and achieve a 400% increase in transaction speed through innovative sharding.

• Arkham: Launched an on-chain sustainable trading platform that leverages intelligence data, pioneering entity-based blockchain analytics.

Note: The selection of all items above represents the views of this yearbook only. Interested readers can also visit the original website to view the introduction of each project, and a short video is thoughtfully provided to explain it.

Due to space limitations, some of the projects in different ecologies will not be explained in detail. The nominations are as follows.

6 treasure charts to take you through 2024

As we all know, CMC is good at data analysis and graph visualization.

The yearbook also selected 6 pictures to depict the changes in the encryption market in 2024 from different data dimensions.

1. The best and worst performing tracks: smart contracts and storage

Smart contract-related projects topped the list with a return rate of 6,000%, while the worst performer was the storage track, with an annual return of -24%.

2. Bitcoin’s post-halving rise continues

Bitcoin halved in 2024, and the current price is around 63,000; everyone has witnessed what is happening now, from an experiment to 100,000 U.S. dollars, throughout the 16 years of BTC's continuous run.

3. Taking history as a guide, it seems that the turning point for the bear has not yet arrived.

Bitcoin and the broader market basically have a 3-4 year cycle. It can be clearly seen from the comparison in the figure below that the black line is the new cycle of 24 years, and the price of Bitcoin has not shown an obvious downward trend.

4. Taking the lead in micro-strategy, an overview of the Bitcoin holdings of global institutions/countries

MicroStrategy leads other institutions around the world with a holding of 440,000 Bitcoins, even exceeding any country's BTC holdings; while China and the United States still have not widened the gap in Bitcoin holdings.

5. The United States remains the country with the largest number of users of CMC websites

Unexpectedly, the second place is India.

6. The most popular track: Meme gradually gains its own value (blue area in the picture below)

12 memes telling the opportunities and interesting things throughout the

year

There were a lot of opportunities last year. Grab 1-2 of them and your story will definitely be different.

And if you have missed too many opportunities, you might as well examine the context and development of opportunities in the past year in these Meme pictures.

• January: SEC is slower than hackers. The SEC official tweet was hacked and released the news that "Bitcoin ETF passed". A few hours later, the SEC actually officially announced that the ETF passed...

• February: Will ETFs rise if approved? In fact, February was pretty dull for BTC.

• March: BTC reached a new high of 73K, and Degens were busy airdropping.

• April: BTC holders tell their relatives and friends about the meaning of CX halving, or pull people to ask for CX halving.

• May: I heard that you are bearish on Ethereum? SEC passes ETH ETF!

• June: Iggy issued coins and opened the head of celebrity coins. Please call her "Mother".

• July: The annual post about "real and fake Satoshi Nakamoto" is here again, Craig Wright's "Satoshi Nakamoto identity authentication" case.

• August: France arrested the founder of Tg, the community fermented, and related Meme appeared, which actually led the trend of political coins.

• September: That man, CZ is back! The market is also getting better.

• October: The law of "must rise in October" has been postponed...

• November: Comrade Chuan Jianguo returns, and encryption enjoys a place in Washington and the White House.

• December: Expectations of interest rate cuts are gradually realized, and the crypto market seems to have seen a savior.

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

In this section, CoinMarketCap conducted an open voting, leaving the decision-making power of the 25-year outlook to users, which is equivalent to a market survey to see which tracks and projects everyone is optimistic about.

At the same time, some of the design issues in the outlook are as follows. Which projects do you think will win?

• Which projects will make big news this year?

Selected list: ETH, PEPE, Monad, Fartcoin, World Liberty Financial (Trump related).

• Which narrative will explode this year?

Shortlisted: NFT/games, quantum computing resistant tokens, crypto IPOs, RWA and AI agents.

• Which assets will be passed by the ETF?

• Who will quietly enter the top 30 in market capitalization?

Alternative list: Virtuals, FET, Pengu, Ethena, Ondo.

• Who will make old coins bloom?