Original article: Coingecko
Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews
The analysis of " Top 10 Leading Projects in 2024: The highest increase is more than 230 times, and 7 Meme coins are on the list " has attracted widespread attention. In order to have a more comprehensive understanding of the development trend of the cryptocurrency market, this study analyzed the main narrative themes of the cryptocurrency market from January 1 to December 29, 2024 based on the market data of Coingecko. By tracking the performance of the top ten tokens in each theme, their average return relative to the beginning of the year (or the first trading day) was calculated. The study selected representative tokens with high market capitalization at the end of the period, and eliminated specific public chain ecosystems and sectors with high overlap with other themes. The results show that the annual returns of different narrative themes vary significantly, ranging from -20.7% to +2,939.8%.
AI and Meme Coins Lead the Market
The most outstanding cryptocurrency narrative theme in 2024 is the AI sector, with an average year-to-date (YTD) increase of 2,939.8%. The second most popular sector is the Meme coin sector, with a year-to-date return of 2,185.1%. The returns of these two sectors are more than twice those of other popular narrative themes.
The meme coin sector started to lead significantly in March, with monthly returns soaring from 96.6% to 1,713.1%. Despite its volatility, meme coins have maintained the highest returns for most of 2024. However, after setting an all-time high return of 3,211.4% on December 9, the sector has experienced a correction as market interest has waned.
In contrast, the AI sector had a strong rebound at the end of the year, with the return rate in December almost doubling from 1,598.1% to 2,939.8%. This was mainly due to the explosive growth of AI proxy platform Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), which also became the token with the largest increase in the cryptocurrency market this year. In the end, the AI sector surpassed Meme coin at the end of December and became the annual revenue champion.
The Real World Assets (RWA) sector ranked third with an average annual return of 819.5%. The sector had a solid start to the year, with a return of 365.3% by April 12, before moving sideways for the next six months. In November, the RWA sector resumed its upward trend, led by the rise in the price of MANTRA (OM).
Layer 1, DePIN and DeFi sectors performed mediocrely
Layer 1, decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN), and decentralized finance (DeFi) sectors performed similarly in 2024, recording returns of 142.5%, 135.4%, and 101.4%, respectively. This means that Layer 1 and DePIN only slightly outperformed Bitcoin's 125.5% increase over the same period, while the performance of the DeFi sector was even worse than Bitcoin.
In other words, conservative investors could earn returns equivalent to at least three major narrative themes simply by holding Bitcoin.
Gaming and Layer 2 sectors performed poorly
GameFi and Layer 2 became the worst performing sectors in 2024, even less than Ethereum's 49.0% increase. Specifically, the GameFi sector rose only 14.7% during the year, and six of the top ten game tokens fell by 3.1% to 32.9%.
Layer 2 is the only sector to record negative returns this year, down 20.7%. As projects seek to launch their own Layer 2 solutions, seven of the top ten Layer 2 tokens have fallen in price, ranging from 6.3% to 75.3%.
The most profitable crypto narrative
Performance of crypto narratives in 2024, ranked by average annual price returns of their 10 largest coins:
