When Bitcoin reaches $1 million, everyone will surely remember the year 2024, which has gone down in history in the cryptocurrency industry. Bitcoin was officially approved by the US SEC for an ETF, making it one of the few assets in the world that cannot be delisted, similar to gold and silver. The price of $100,000 per coin has also fueled market speculation about the future of cryptocurrency. BlockBeats has compiled 5 pieces of data in the hope that these numbers will help everyone understand what has happened in the Crypto world this year and also help everyone envision what the future might hold.

Chart 1: BTC Market Dominance

In 2024, Bitcoin saw a more than 130% increase in its value during the year, a surge that cannot be separated from the keywords "Wall Street" and "Trump." The pricing power and liquidity of Bitcoin underwent a structural shift in the US financial and political sectors after receiving open support.

Institutional Entry, A Stride Forward

On January 11, ten Bitcoin spot ETFs were approved. After the positive news, the Bitcoin price experienced a period of "Grayscale sell-off" and hit the first all-time high of 2024 on March 13.

Related Read: "Bitcoin Celebrates 15th Anniversary with New All-Time High, What Happened in the 800 Days Since Reaching $69,000 Per Coin"

Currently, Bitcoin spot ETFs have absorbed an average of 259% of the daily newly issued Bitcoin. Since their listing, these funds have accumulated a net inflow of $30 billion, holding over 1.408 million Bitcoins, equivalent to 7% of the total circulating supply. Bitcoin ETFs had 155 net inflow days in 2024, with an average daily net inflow of 5,233 BTC. In contrast, there were 93 net outflow days, with an average daily net outflow of 2,702 BTC.

Net inflows and outflows of Bitcoin spot ETFs in 2024; Image Source: SoSoValue

The returns of Bitcoin and ETF fund flows were closely linked throughout the year. Sustained strong inflows into ETFs typically accompany a strong market performance, and vice versa. This relationship can also be intuitively understood, as ETF inflows reflect the absorptive capacity of the spot market, i.e., buying pressure, while outflows reflect selling pressure.

The smooth to negative fund flow during the summer period corresponded to the market condition of overselling by the German government, as well as institutions such as institutions such as institutions such as institutions such as institutions such as institutions such as institutions such as the German government. The sharp increase in fund flow in the fourth quarter coincided with the election of Trump and the proactive accumulation by MicroStrategy.

As of December 20, 2024, institutional investors had collectively purchased 859,454 bitcoins, accounting for approximately 4.3% of the total circulating supply. Currently, institutional investors represent 31% of all known Bitcoin holders, a significant increase from 14% in 2023. In terms of publicly listed companies, a total of 297,673 bitcoins were accumulated in 2024, with MicroStrategy adopting an aggressive acquisition strategy to purchase nearly 250,000 bitcoins, bringing their total holdings to 439,000 bitcoins. Despite about 230,000 bitcoins originating from bankruptcy liquidation and seized assets this year, institutional demand effectively absorbed the selling pressure, and approximately 22% of the circulating supply is now available for trading, approaching the levels seen in 2021.

The dominance of CME-led open interest volume throughout the year also reflects a significant institutional trend in the Bitcoin market. As a leading global financial derivatives trading platform, CME has attracted a large number of directional funds, basis traders, and market makers, among other professional institutional participants, due to its strict regulatory framework and transparency.

Bitcoin Futures Open Interest; Image Source: Coinglass

These institutions engage in Bitcoin derivative trading through CME, bringing not only higher capital efficiency and liquidity but also gradually reshaping the market structure, concentrating trading activities more within the derivative markets. Meanwhile, the active trading of complex financial products such as 2x leveraged Bitcoin ETFs further solidifies institutional capital's dominant position in the Bitcoin market, marking a shift from retail-driven to institutionally led maturity in the Bitcoin market.

Gradually Departing from Crypto Fundamentals?

On April 20, Bitcoin experienced its fourth halving, but the price on that day showed a deviation from the historical average of a 22% pre-halving rally, instead dropping by 8%. In the subsequent 125 days, 2024 emerged as the worst-performing phase post-halving among all halving events.

One of the reasons for this phenomenon is that the actual impact of each halving on the circulating supply is steadily diminishing, and this diminishment has become more pronounced this year due to the overlay of macro factors. Data shows that Bitcoin's circulating supply is expected to increase by 216,158 BTC in 2024, while the annual issuance in 2025 is projected to be only 164,250 BTC, lower than MicroStrategy's accumulation between November 1 and December 12, 2024, resulting in a network annual inflation rate of only 0.8%.

Therefore, in the long run, the supply shock caused by the halving will have a diminishing impact on the Bitcoin price. A more significant driver of Bitcoin's future price is likely to shift towards structural changes on the demand side, no longer relying primarily on the supply contraction caused by the halving.

On the other hand, the correlation between Bitcoin and U.S. stock assets is becoming stronger. In the financial markets, asset allocation emphasizes that when significant volatility occurs, the assets in a basket do not move in the same direction. Therefore, when Grayscale went on a Bitcoin buying spree in 2019, the market's understanding was that Bitcoin had very low correlation with all other USD-denominated assets at that time.

However, by 2024, the correlation coefficient between Bitcoin and U.S. stocks is mostly positive, and Bitcoin's price movements are more synchronized with the U.S. stock market than almost any other time in the past, indicating that macroeconomic variables driving the stock market are also shaping the crypto market. Unless there is a black swan event specific to cryptocurrencies, this situation may continue throughout the entire easing cycle of the Federal Reserve.

Correlation Coefficient of Bitcoin and U.S. Stocks in 2024, Source: Newhedge

On August 5, the Japanese stock market crashed, and global stock markets experienced varying degrees of decline, with Bitcoin also dropping to its lowest level in months on the same day. Investors rushed to sell Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETF shares, with Bitcoin's 24-hour liquidation reaching $1.16 billion.

Subsequently, analysis firms attributed Bitcoin's steep decline to an unexpected interest rate hike by the Bank of Japan, coupled with market expectations of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve, increasing uncertainty about central bank policies and leading to deleveraging of the financial system. Many financial market participants borrowed yen to invest in high-yield assets and reversed their position directions, causing Bitcoin to become a casualty asset in this process. It wasn't until October, buoyed by a more crypto-friendly political climate outlook, that the Bitcoin price once again exceeded $73,000.

At the same time, this year's most Bitcoin-correlated U.S. stock, MicroStrategy (MSTR), also joined the Nasdaq 100 index on December 23, further elevating the correlation between Bitcoin and U.S. stock assets. In addition, the final rebalancing mechanism of funds investing in BTC ETFs will further enhance structural correlation.

Trump Rally Shows Initial Strength

In 2024, during Trump's pursuit of support from the crypto industry, the price of Bitcoin was closely linked with Trump's election odds. After Trump's victory was confirmed, the Bitcoin price surged to $99,500, just a step away from six figures. On December 4, Bitcoin broke $100,000 for the first time in history, pushing its market value close to $2 trillion, ranking just below Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google's parent company, Alphabet, in the market capitalization ranking.

2024 Bitcoin Market Cap Change Comparison Chart; Source: K33 Research

Related Reading: "The Unstoppable Bitcoin: From $100K to $2T in 16 Years"

Michael Saylor and Trump are two key figures that cannot be overlooked when summarizing Bitcoin's 2024. The former traversed the cycle using financial tools to leverage Bitcoin, becoming the happiest person in this bull market. Meanwhile, Trump, from announcing at a Bitcoin conference his plan to establish a national strategic reserve to firing Gensler and appointing a pro-crypto White House team, immersed himself in the field, sparking imagination for Bitcoin's development as a mainstream asset in the new cycle.

Since the beginning of the year, institutions and MicroStrategy have net-purchased 683,000 bitcoins, with 245,000 of these transactions occurring in the weeks following the U.S. election. This demonstrates that the Republican Party's and Trump's policy inclinations will greatly boost Bitcoin's importance as a mainstream asset in the U.S., with the market eagerly anticipating Trump's presidency and its impact on the cryptocurrency market.

The Belated Season of Altcoins

The change in Bitcoin's market dominance has always been a key indicator for observing market dynamics in the crypto industry. In 2024, Bitcoin's market dominance climbed from the beginning of the year to 61%. At the same time, investors lamented that few assets could outperform Bitcoin this year, and the price performance of altcoins has made insiders frequently exclaim about the high difficulty of operating in this round of the cycle.

2024 Bitcoin Price Trend Chart; Source: TradingView

In 2024, Bitcoin's market cap grew by 141%, soaring from $828 billion to $1.98 trillion. Ethereum's market cap grew by 72% in 2024, rising from $274 billion to $473 billion. The market cap of other altcoins grew by 129% in 2024, increasing from $389 billion to $886 billion. This was mainly due to the strong performance of SOL and meme coins, with only 25 out of the top 100 altcoins outperforming Bitcoin.

On one hand, the overvalued "VC coins" were not recognized by the market this year, and on the other hand, Bitcoin, whose market dominance has been steadily rising towards 2024, did not bring much real liquidity to the crypto market. In March this year, WhaleMap asserted that "there is no altcoin season in this cycle" because the liquidity injected by the Bitcoin spot ETF is less likely to flow into the crypto altcoin market, thus leading to the market performance known as the "Bitcoin-only bull."

Looking back on this year, Bitcoin has completed a capital relay race driven by Wall Street and policy, redefining its global financial asset status by breaking the $100,000 mark. However, this is not just a price breakthrough but also a profound transformation of market structure, capital flow, and asset perception. The wave of Bitcoin ETFization and the institution-dominated market are pushing this decentralized asset onto a broader mainstream stage, but it is also making it more complex and sensitive to macro variables.

From the diminishing marginal returns of the halving effect to the boost from the Trump administration's policies, what Bitcoin has shown in 2024 is not just its control over the cycle but also its proof of ability to integrate into the global financial system. Currently, the market may still be entangled with issues of liquidity concentration and the absence of altcoins, but in the long run, Bitcoin is moving towards a more resilient, more widely accepted global value storage evolution.

Chart 2: AI Mindshare

2024 was a miraculous year for CryptoAI. From the beginning of the year when NVIDIA's stock price surge led to the rise of the DePin concept, to the development of datasets and machine learning, and finally ignited by Truth Terminal, the craze of AI Agents soared. Whether traders or developers outside the circle, retail or institutional, all set their sights on the AI Agent track. Let's review how this track, which currently has the most consensus, exploded in the past year.

Decentralized Computing Power, the Touchstone of CryptoAI

DePin Sector 2024 Index Change; Source: SoSoValue

In January 2024, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman clearly pointed out at the Davos Forum that computing power and energy shortage are the biggest bottlenecks for current AI development and predicted that in the future, computing power would be equivalent to currency. With ChatGPT sweeping the globe and NVIDIA's stock price hitting new highs, the market's attention to the AI field has unprecedentedly increased, especially in a world where GPU resources are scarce, distributed GPU concept projects have been well received. Not only have old projects like FileCoin and Arweave returned to the market, but new DePin projects have also emerged like snowflakes.

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It wasn't until around June that a large number of emerging Depin projects started TGE token airdrops, which was part of the wool-pulling studio's cycle. However, Nvidia then surpassed all the tech giants to become the world's most valuable listed company with its AI chip business, only to fall afterwards. The reason was the FUD sentiment in the market — many believed that DePin's computational power was insufficient to support large-scale model training or similar high-demand scenarios at the time. Additionally, amidst the craze of the meme market, where everything moved at a fast pace, DePin's validation period was too long. Therefore, many reduced their asset allocations, and the market entered a period of calm.

Dataset and Machine Learning, the Arsenal of AI Agents

Aside from computational power demands like GPUs, data is the most crucial resource for AI development. Blockchain data, with its characteristics of openness, transparency, and verifiability, provides unique value for AI/ML (Machine Learning). ML algorithms, through technologies such as GAN, VAE, and Transformer, transform data into useful insights or actions. Many large companies now collect their users' data because it not only serves AI training but also facilitates big data recommendations. Information about data-related tokens has surged along with the rise in popularity of AI from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

In this era, data is a high-value asset. People have grown accustomed to traditional companies directly monetizing user information without users receiving any profits from it. However, this year saw the emergence of the first awakening of information rights. DataDao was born because Reddit revealed in its IPO prospectus in February this year that it had signed data licensing agreements with AI companies, generating a total revenue of $203 million, yet Reddit users did not receive a single cent.

Thus, "r/datadao" was created, issuing the $RDAT token to empower user data, allowing users to export their data from the Reddit platform and upload it to the community's database to receive tokens. This is the first Dao to fight for user data rights, and the driving force behind it is Vana, a machine learning platform listed on Binance in December.

At the beginning of the year, Vitalik presented his views on CryptoAI in "The Prospects and Challenges of Crypto+AI Applications," discussing the possibility of combining zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-SNARKs) and secure multiparty computation (MPC) technologies with AI training datasets. The advancement of these two technologies this year has also driven the development of privacy-oriented algorithms in CryptoAI projects, leading to the emergence of several projects providing platforms and ecosystems for machine learning.

Among them are Vana, which was mentioned earlier as supporting DataDao, and Bittensor, the force behind the booming market for $TAO. Machine learning, boosted by the AI Agent bull market in October, served as the foundation for underlying applications. Bittensor collaborated with the well-known AI Agent platform Virtuals Protocol to introduce the CAT AI AgentTAOCAT, showcasing Bittensor's machine learning capabilities. The renowned AI project Nous Research also developed a subnet on Bittensor to support a dataset assessment system, which not only trained the optimized large-scale model Hermes but also created the model optimization tool DisTrO.

Related Reads:

《Rebound from the Bottom: Why did the old coin r/datadao in the AI track make a comeback?》
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AI+meme, The Great Breakthrough of Crypto AI

The AI Agent represents the first large-scale successful application of CryptoAI, enabling the decentralized computing power, datasets, and machine learning network to find actual demand. Before this, the demands in these areas were all peer-to-peer and lacked continuity. However, with the emergence of AI Agents, a flywheel effect has been triggered across various related sectors. Serving as a middleman, it brings the infrastructure and attention economy demand to lower-tier users.

Early in the AI Agent cycle, a large number of Meme + AI Agents emerged. At this stage, the two do not differ much in their business model; fundamentally, both are part of the attention economy, not generating value, but only culture. Therefore, as long as you have a sufficient number of unwavering followers, this token or culture can persist.

Among them, Truth Terminal deserves the title of the flag-bearer of this AI Agent trend. It was trained by Andy in the Infinite Blackrooms and established the Goatse Gospel religion in a conversation. With a $50,000 Bitcoin grant from a16z's founder, it released its own religion's eponymous token, Goatse Gospel. Finally, with the help of Fartcoin, it became the first AI millionaire, breaking the circle, attracting more attention from Web2 developers and AI enthusiasts.

The breaking of the $Goat circle led to the prosperity of the entire CryptoAI ecosystem, making it different from technology, applications, or even memes, leaning more towards a symbolic existence. However, associated with it, FartCoin, Shoggoth, as well as representations like Tee model's error error ttyl, can represent several AI-related concepts and the extension of MeMe culture related to AI, bringing people deeper philosophical reflections. Meanwhile, thought leaders or virtual idols like AIxbt, Zerebro, Luna used superhuman marketing tactics to gain extremely high influence.

Related Read: "Unprecedented Boom, What Other Potential AI Meme Coins Are There?"

But beyond the attention economy, there is a bigger bubble, the Bubble Factory, where the Virtuals Protocol is a premeditated bubble-making machine. Initially, when many AI Agents launched their coins, they would choose to launch on pump.fun. When there already exists a qualified asset launch platform, building an ecosystem platform for AI Agents requires more than just token issuance. Virtuals, as the most comprehensive AI Agent ecosystem platform in this cycle, included various components in its initial business model framework, such as token launch platform, Agent framework, AI Agent creator, ecosystem token, native influential IP figure, and real-world application cases in each track. This is also why Virtuals' flywheel can continue spinning in this cycle.

Read more:《AI Agent's New Power Emerging: Exploring the Potential Token of the Virtuals Ecosystem》

2024 AI Sector-Related Token Market Trend; Data sourced from CoinGecko, Infographic: BlockBeats

AI16z's influence on Sol is no less than that of the Virtuals, with a super large developer community. The open-source Eliza architecture has garnered over 6,000 stars and has been forked 1,800 times. The released ElizaOS is gradually integrating the developer community, ecosystem projects, and friendly projects from external ecosystems. The people in the AI16z ecosystem excel at maintaining an attraction economy, from Eliza's case sensitivity debate, cooperation with Stanford University labs, to using Tee and Eliza frameworks to create AI Agents that are conceptually self-funding and airdropping through AIPool.

Whether criticized or praised, Shaw always seems to keep the entire market focused on AI16z, enabling them to continue to work wonders in the market. Meanwhile, Zerebro and Story, which are more focused on AI creation, showcase the exciting experiences of bringing AI into the real world, inevitably raising expectations for the upcoming entertainment form of the AGI era.

Read more:
《AI16z Founder Shaw's Latest Interview: Why Can AI Meme Attract Institutional Funds?》
《With an Annual Salary of $365,000, Story Protocol Hired an AI Agent as an Intern》

After the attractiveness market gradually weakened in 2024, there is still a need for sinking applications for continuity. All AI participants hope to propel AI into the AGI era, whether it's Solana's version of Perplexity-GriffAIn, projects like Swarms, Eliza, and GAME working on Multi-Agent concepts, or when people truly become addicted to AI Agent applications; that will guide the market towards more sustainability. The CryptoAI, which can enable AI Agents to have wallets, a more comprehensive dataset, and multi-agent collaboration, may be the true soil that can propel AI Agents into the AGI era. The AI Agent era is just beginning, and before finding larger speculative topics in the market, Crypto AI will be the most core trend.

Chart 3: Meme Coin Total Market Cap

Meme Coin 2024 Market Cap Changes; Source: CoinMarketCap

In 2024, the Meme Coin sector was one of the fastest-growing and most traded areas, with the "overnight riches" myth capturing the attention of countless people, especially after BOME broke the billion-dollar market cap record at a record speed in March, leading the entire market into a hot "Meme Summer." Essentially, Meme Coins' strong performance is based on attention and FOMO sentiment. They provide lower transaction costs, fair and transparent token distribution, efficient issuance, and trading mechanisms, meeting the speculative needs of many investors.

According to CoinMarketCap data, the 2024 Meme Coin market cap showed an overall growth trend. In the first quarter, the market cap fluctuated around 200 billion US dollars. In March, with the birth of Bome and the rapid development of Pump.fun, the meme market experienced a transformative change, stabilizing the total market cap at around 500 billion US dollars. From the second quarter to the third quarter, although various meme coins were still being hyped, the overall market cap did not increase accordingly. Meme coin trading gradually became a player-versus-player game among retail investors. In the fourth quarter, the favorable trend of U.S. policies became clearer, Bitcoin's strong upward price movement approached $100,000, AI storytelling combined with Binance's frenzy listing of meme coins injected a large amount of liquidity into the meme market. Meme coins were unprecedentedly hot, the market size quickly surged, reaching its peak market cap of 137.1 billion US dollars on December 9, and as of the drafting date (December 24), the market cap was 96.5 billion US dollars.

Based on the market cap changes, the author divided the development of Meme Coins in 2024 into three stages:

1-3 Months: Early Stage, ORDI Peaks the New Year, BOME Explodes Overnight;

3-10 Months: Many Memes Emerge, But Market Cap Stagnates in PvP Stage;

10-12 Months: AI Storytelling + Binance Listing Meme Coins, Market Cap Soars, PvP Evolves into PvE.

1-3 Months: Early Stage, ORDI Peaks the New Year, BOME Explodes Overnight

ORDI was the first BRC-20 token issued on the Bitcoin blockchain, and its most spectacular year was 2023, during which it leaped from zero to over ten billion in market cap, leading the epigraph wave. As we entered 2024, the hype around ORDI continued to rise, and on March 5, it hit a new all-time high of $97, with a market cap reaching a staggering $1.84 billion.

However, founder Casey had long been dissatisfied with BRC-20, believing that it would generate a large amount of "junk" UTXO. With Casey unveiling the Runes documentation on the X platform by the end of March 2024, Runes became the most powerful competitor to Inscriptions. Inscription transactions had long held over 50% of the share on the Bitcoin chain, but after the official release of the Runes protocol in April, the transaction share of BRC-20 and Ordinals had been reduced to less than 10%. As of the drafting date, the ORDI price was $26.46, with a market cap reduced to $560 million, only one-third of the largest market cap.

Bitcoin Chain Transaction Share; Image Source: geniidata

Related Reading: "'Runes' Imminent Release, Inscriptions Celebration Continues?"

The explosion of BOME Coin ignited the first wave of the 2024 meme coin market frenzy, sparking the meme craze to spread across various public chains, kicking off the 2024 meme frenzy. At the same time, BOME innovatively adopted the "presale" gameplay, initiating a unique art show.

On March 14, 2024, BOOK OF MEME (BOME) issued by Pepe Meme artist Darkfarm skyrocketed 20 times within just three hours of its launch, with a market cap exceeding $80 million. BOME is a permanent storage image gallery for memes, with the ability to expand a series of meme creation features based on it. On March 13, Darkfarm started the presale, allowing participation by sending SOL to a designated Solana address. The effect of the presale and the hype generated exceeded expectations, with the token widely spread in the Chinese and English communities, and a large number of buy orders of over a hundred SOL continuously pouring in driving its price up; BOME peaked at a high price of $0.0012, a approximately 24x increase, with a market cap exceeding $80 million.

Related Reading: "Less Than a Day After Launch, On-Chain Trading Volume Exceeds $200 Million, Why Did Pepe Meme Artist's BOME Explode?"

In terms of mechanism, a meme coin, as a type of cryptocurrency with no real value, typically adopts a fair launch to issue coins. While presales are common in traditional financial markets, meme coins are unique in that they thrive on emotion and trends. For projects without strong backing, users sending SOL to a specified address after a presale are likely to bear the risk of a rug pull by the project team. The success of BOME not only made it a market focus but also triggered a presale trend in the Solana ecosystem, opening up market imagination for the frenzy of future meme coins. The meme coin market cap doubled from $200 billion to $500 billion.

March-October: Gold Rushes Abound, Yet Market Cap Stays Flat in PvP Phase

In the second phase, the meme coin market cap stabilized at $500 billion, with fluctuations around this level. The popularity of pump.fun in March made creating and trading meme coins more convenient, allowing anyone to easily create their own meme coins, attracting a large number of investors to participate and expanding the market size. During this time, numerous meme coins with billion-dollar market caps emerged, such as BRETT, Neiro, MOODENG, CHILLGUY, but the overall market cap of meme coins did not show stable growth despite the emergence of the overnight riches myth. The entire market remained in a zero-sum PvP game state. In an environment lacking a new narrative, the hype logic of meme coins shifted towards CTOs, TikTok influencers, and the like.

Pump.fun was launched in January 2024 as an issuance and trading platform for Solana-based meme coins, featuring fair launches. It quickly gained popularity in the community, riding the wave of meme coin craze, or directly propelling the meme coin frenzy into a new stage.

According to Dune dashboard data provided by Hashed, starting from March, the number of tokens deployed on the pump.fun platform has gradually increased, with an average daily addition of around 10,000 newly deployed tokens. The cumulative number of deployed tokens has now reached close to 1.8 million.

Deployment volume of tokens on the pump.fun platform; Source: dune

For project issuers, the entry barrier of Pump.fun is low, requiring only 0.02 SOL to launch a project (which became free in early August). Projects can quickly list, and as long as they reach a market value of $60,000, they can swiftly enter Dex Raydium. By then, the first buyers have already gained multiple returns.

For retail investors, daily tracking of tokens issued following hot topics represents the current mainstream user's love for Meme culture, contrasting sharply with traditional VC projects; due to the limited liquidity of the pump.fun platform and the large market value fluctuations, it has also created opportunities for windfall profits. There are no shortage of legendary stories where investors entered with 1 SOL and made a hundredfold profit, greatly stimulating market enthusiasm.

Related Reading: "The Truth About Pump.fun: Average Daily Active Users 50-70k, Only 3% of Accounts Profited Over $1,000"

In July, the lowercase Neiro sounded the horn of community victory, being hailed as the first CTO-spirited Meme coin.

Neiro was inspired by the real-life namesake Shiba Inu, known as the successor to DOGE. On July 31, the uppercase NEIRO was revealed by bubblemaps to be a true conspiracy group just one week after its launch, while the lowercase Neiro was more community-driven and remained lukewarm in the early stages until Vitalik publicly expressed support and donated over $500,000 to an animal welfare fund. It was only through the power of community promotion that its price gradually started to rise.

At the beginning of September, Binance's listing announcement undoubtedly reignited the debate between uppercase and lowercase. Binance announced the listing of both uppercase NEIRO and lowercase Neiro within ten days of each other. Eventually, the market value of lowercase Neiro also quickly surged within a few hours, skyrocketing from $20 million to over $120 million, while the uppercase NEIRO token price rapidly fell, plummeting below $0.1 in just a few hours, with a single-day maximum decline of over 50%.

After the initial project team abandoned the project, Neiro was taken over by the community, and in the end, the crypto community triumphed over the "conspiracy group." The victory of lowercase Neiro marked the first "official recognition" by Binance of the community-based CTO's power, demonstrating the strong potential of community governance. Through this battle, Neiro, also known as the first CTO-spirited Meme coin, emerged victorious.

In September, moodeng sparked a trend of viral animal memes, leveraging TikTok for viral dissemination.

"Cuteness" and "ugly-cute" have always been popular images that netizens enjoy and are long-standing hotspots in the meme market. In September, a small hippo named Moo Deng went viral across the Internet, becoming the headline of various media outlets. It was born at the Khao Kheow open zoo in Thailand and quickly became popular on TikTok and Instagram due to its cute expression and ugly-cute image.

Based on Moo Deng, a meme coin was launched on the Solana Pump.fun platform, gaining immense popularity and love, and its market value exceeded $100 million in just a few weeks. On November 15, after Binance announced the listing of the MOODENG contract, the meme coin skyrocketed by over 100%.

The Hippo MOO DENG has gained tremendous popularity in the international community, receiving extensive coverage from numerous media outlets in a short period. For the meme market, which is already enthusiastic about cute animals, the adorable nature of the animal itself lends well to hype. Moreover, with the viral spread on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, it easily becomes a phenomenal meme coin target.

Related reading: "Tenfold Increase in Ten Days, Hippo MooDeng Initiates the 'Internet Celebrity Animal Meme Trend'"

Although it may seem like market hotspots are emerging frequently during this period, there is a lack of a narrative that truly expands the market, and many hotspots lose momentum after the first wave of PvP. In October of this year, BlockBeats conducted a survey on investor behavior towards memecoins, with 274 investors participating. Although the scope is limited, it still provides insight into the current market conditions and retail investor sentiment.

From the results, it can be seen that around 40% of investors buy into more than 3 meme projects each day; in terms of purchase amount, 30% buy below 0.1 SOL, 30% buy in the 1-5 SOL range, and there are also 13% of whales who make one-time purchases of over 5 SOL.

In terms of profit and loss, only 40% of investors have made money in the past month, but overall, there are mainly those who have made big profits, small profits, or small losses. Investors with significant losses (over 1000 units) make up only 20%. Regarding the current meme market trend, the vast majority of investors agree that this is an information asymmetry game, with close to half of the participants considering it pure gambling.

Simultaneously, another set of data from CashCashBot also highlights a similar issue. The data records the profit and loss and frequency of operations of various addresses in October, showing that both regular users and VIP users are highly active daily, but the overall average returns are still negative.

In terms of win rate, most of the time users have an average daily win rate of less than 0.5, with the highest daily win rate also less than 0.6, and the lowest daily win rate around 0.42;

Average Daily Win Rate of Users; Image Source: CashCashBot

In terms of daily earnings, the left image shows the average earnings of all users. It can be seen that most of the time, the average daily earnings of users are negative, and the maximum positive earnings are only around 25 USD; the right image shows the total earnings and losses of VIP users. It is not difficult to find that the trend chart of total earnings and losses is basically symmetrical around the 0 scale line, indicating that the net earnings of VIP users are also around 0. Overall, it is also a zero-sum game. Some users told BlockBeats in an interview that they really like the internal address analysis feature of CashCashBot, but due to the intense player versus player (PVP) market situation, it is very difficult to make a positive profit even with very handy tools.

Left Image: Average Daily Net Earnings of All Users; Right Image: Daily Total Earnings and Losses of VIP Users; Image Source: CashCashBot

In terms of trading frequency, in October, the average daily number of trades made by users basically remained above 10 times, and half of the time it was above 15 times, indicating that users' participation frequency and willingness to engage in the market remain at a relatively high level.

Average Daily Number of Trades; Image Source: CashCashBot

The above data roughly sketches the profile of some retail investors, waiting for opportunities every day, frequently engaging in PVP, but in the end, only a few people can successfully make money. Most people experience small gains or losses, as it is difficult to find a market pattern. They can only rely on information asymmetry to increase the win rate in this "gamble."

October to December: AI Narrative + Binance's Wild Listing of Meme Coins, Market Cap Soars, Shifting from PVP to PVE

After engaging in six months of PVP, the market finally saw new growth momentum. In October, the emergence of AI memes and AI Agents brought a new narrative and unlimited possibilities for gameplay. In November, Binance listed pnut and act, and subsequently, Binance wildly listed meme coins, injecting a massive amount of liquidity into the meme market. The market cap skyrocketed from 500 billion USD to the 1 trillion USD level. At the same time, the DeSci narrative rose, and PVP finally transitioned to PVE.

In October, AI Agent memes gradually entered the market's field of vision, igniting the AI+meme new track.

This trend began with GOAT, where GOAT stands for Goatseus Maximus, developed by Andy Ayrey and backed by a16z. It originated from Truth Terminal and is a token issued by an AI Bot engaged in multi-round reasoning and soliloquy.

With Truth Terminal's frequent promotion on Twitter, on October 10, an anonymous investor recognized the meme's potential for widespread dissemination, launching GOAT, which went live on Pump.fun. GOAT's market cap reached a peak of $3.5 billion in just a few days. Subsequently, due to the official intense promotion and the wealth effect of the secondary market, GOAT's market cap exceeded $13 billion.

After the explosion of GOAT, AI Agents emerged in large numbers like mushrooms after rain, with different agents launching different tokens, developing various gameplay and features to attract attention, and then gradually perfecting their application scenarios to build their own ecosystem. For example, ZEREBRO and AI16Z both announced plans to launch AI infrastructure using their tokens.

The rise of GOAT not only reflects the intersection of artificial intelligence, blockchain, and meme culture but also reveals the AI's potentially profound impact on the crypto space. This phenomenon has brought the combination of AI and memes back into the public eye, sparking widespread discussion and attention, and opening up possibilities for new tracks.

On November 11, Binance listed meme coins PNUT and ACT spot, which surged by 330% and 1440% respectively within a day, once again igniting the meme market.

The squirrel image of PNUT originated from a squirrel named "Peanut" that was euthanized under suspicion of carrying a virus. At that time, Dogecoin condemned the Democratic Party in a post, and Musk also mourned Pnut in a post and claimed that Trump's election would save Peanut. Subsequently, a large number of Peanut derivatives began to emerge online. Since then, based on the Internet celebrity animal meme, Peanut has been overlaid with a buff with a political color related to "Trump."

ACT Meme is a cryptocurrency that combines AI technology and blockchain, aiming to create an ecosystem with an "AI and Meme" theme. ACT has been betrayed by developers many times, which once brought significant negative impacts to its long-term development, but the community has never given up on building the ACT project.

The sudden wealth creation miracle brought about by PNUT and ACT pushed market sentiment to a climax. Binance also took advantage of the trend by crazily listing meme coins. Within a month, Binance successively listed tokens such as HIPPO, DEGEN, BAN, SLERF, CHEEMS, WHY, CHILLGUY, etc. The meme coin market was extremely hot, with abundant liquidity pouring in, doubling the overall market cap of the meme coin market, reaching its peak on December 9 at a market cap of 137.1 billion USD.

Another hotspot in November was DeSci. On November 8, Binance Labs announced an investment in BIO Protocol, stating that this investment marked Binance Labs' first foray into the field of Decentralized Science (DeSci). Shortly after this announcement, in less than a week, CZ attended Binance's Desci Day event in Bangkok and discussed DeSci insights with Vitalik.

Binance's investment drove the rapid rise of DeSci sector tokens. RIF and URO surged nearly 50 times within two days, with market caps reaching 2.5 billion USD and 1.6 billion USD, respectively, becoming the focus of the market at that time. Following this, tokens related to Bio Protocol supported by Binance Labs emerged, and meme coins related to the world's largest open-access scientific research platform, Sci-Hub, also joined the Desci Meme track. A grand narrative of decentralized science unfolded, with the market in a frenzy. Many participants believed this was a track with as much potential as the AI Meme.

Related Reading: "Biological Experiment Meme Thousandfold in a Week, Hot Money is Pouring into DeSci"

This round of Meme narrative, from runic inscriptions, presales, community CTOs, internet-famous animals, to AI Meme and DeSci, saw innovative gameplay and narratives emerging one after another. It achieved two substantial increases in market value in March and November, respectively, and gave birth to tokens that became all the rage like BOME, SLERF, Neiro, MOODENG, PNUT, GOAT, RIF, among others. The overall market cap of the meme market grew fivefold from the beginning of the year.

After brewing in the first quarter, the market's eruption in March, and a subsequent PvP lasting for half a year, the Binance listing effect in November finally injected a significant amount of liquidity into the meme market, finding new market increments. AI Meme and AI Agent, as well as DeSci combining web3 and science, have opened up entirely new tracks for memes, broadening the market's imagination. Several tokens that skyrocketed and numerous top-tier investment institutions entering the scene have also proven the market's boundless potential.

In the future, Meme will inevitably become an indispensable piece of the entire Web3 ecosystem, continuing to create new myths. The Meme is on the rise, and the future looks promising.

Chart 4: DEX vs CEX Market Share

In July of this year, The Block released a data report showing that the market ratio of DEX to CEX spot trading volume reached 13.76% at mid-year, surpassing May 2023's 13.7%, setting a new record high. In June, CEX trading volume was $1.11 trillion, while DEX trading volume was $123 billion. Just three months later, this number doubled, reaching nearly $300 billion in October.

Since the DeFi Summer of 2020, the market ratio of DEX to CEX has maintained a strong growth trend, even during the deep bear market of 2023. Over the past four years, amid the continuous evolution of crypto narratives such as DeFi, Metaverse, NFTs, GameFi, and DePIN, the market has always interpreted the underlying logic and eternal proposition of Mass Adoption: "From Web2 to CEX, and then from CEX to DEX."

In 2024, the core trend of industry development seems to have hit the accelerator, entering a key stage of transformation from quantitative change to qualitative change. According to a16z's data, the total number of active addresses of the top blockchains in the crypto market has rapidly grown from 70 million in August to over 160 million by the end of this year, almost 20 times higher than in 2021.

Left: DEX vs CEX Market Share, Right: Top Public Chain Active Addresses; Data Source: The Block, a16z Crypto

On-Chain Asset Issuance Welcomes a New Spring

After experiencing a two-year market state of "blockchain oversupply," the crypto industry in 2024 has once again entered a full-scale on-chain revival mode, igniting a new wave of growth in asset innovation and transaction infrastructure.

At the end of 2023, the BRC-20 standard and the subsequent surge in on-chain inscriptions ushered in a second wave of frenzy, shifting the majority of crypto market trading goods from CEX to on-chain. From the Bitcoin ecosystem's AUCTION, MUBI to the Solana ecosystem's ZERO, NUTS, and the Avalanche ecosystem's AVAV, the frenzy around on-chain inscriptions has not only attracted a large number of new users but has also brought more active funds into the on-chain ecosystem.

Related Reading: "The 50-Day 'Shovel Season,' Is It Coming to an End?"

Despite the Bitcoin ecosystem's strong "retro vibe," the continuously rising market trading heat has also brought the ancient OTC trading mode into the public eye, giving rise to OTC pre-market trading products on platforms like Whales Market and aevo. Interestingly, in the process of transitioning commodity trading from off-chain to on-chain, OKX "accidentally" emerged as the biggest winner.

Left: Aevo, Right: Whales Market

In 2023, OKX quietly began to exert its strength in decentralized wallet products and quickly became the primary trading platform in the inscription market. Earlier this year, the most common phrase heard among crypto users may have been, "I have uninstalled MetaMask." After long-term investment and polishing, OKX unexpectedly became the smoothest "chain abstraction product" in terms of user experience in the wallet race, leveraging the heat of the inscription market to attract and nurture a large number of new users, and rapidly seized the market through word of mouth in the industry, experiencing an explosive growth in user numbers in April, with a growth rate of over 130% in two months.

Related Reading:

《Why Did OKX Become the Biggest Winner of BRC-20?》

《The Rise and Fall of MetaMask》

End-of-Year 2023 OKX Wallet Address Growth, Data Source: Dune Analytics

With the continuous overflow of market heat and funds, the inscription concept and Solana ecosystem's meme culture underwent a chemical reaction, rapidly fermenting into hit innovative products like ZERO (Analysoor) and NUTS. The emergence of Pump.fun in May officially kicked off the Solana on-chain asset issuance and trading frenzy, propelling the entire crypto industry into an asset explosion state. The market share of Solana's top DEX, Raydium, swiftly grew from 8% at the beginning of the year to nearly 20%. According to The Block's data, as of the time of writing, 80% of new tokens are issued on the Solana blockchain.

Top: Percentage of New Public Chain Token Issuance, Bottom: Pump.fun Transaction Fee Revenue; Data Source: The Block

Transaction Infrastructure Arms Race: On-chain Exit Is No Longer a Dream

Behind the heat of on-chain asset issuance is a new round of on-chain infrastructure explosion, where developers have engaged in a highly competitive "insider" competition around asset issuance, distribution, and trading. On the Solana blockchain, the first battlefield opened was around the "on-chain information distribution" tools.

Following the surge of Analysoor and NUTS, the Solana ecosystem meme market momentum began to rise, partly thanks to traffic supply from the "early on-chain platform" Birdeye. Many on-chain players started looking for trading opportunities based on Birdeye's daily popular meme leaderboard, providing a distribution channel to bring more attention and liquidity to lower market cap meme tokens.

Under the successive impacts of "super meme coins" such as SILLY, BOME, and SLERF, the Solana on-chain meme market was completely ignited. In the race for traffic dividends, veteran token analysis tools like Dexscreener and DEXTool also started timely optimizations for popular blockchains such as Solana, Base, and Sui, further promoting the efficiency of asset information distribution. The meme coin outbreak brought attention, platform competition for information distribution efficiency, more attention and liquidity entry, and thus the initial formation of a "heat flywheel" in the meme market.

Left: Birdeye, Right: Dexscreener

After Pumpfun's rise in May, on-chain players began to have more demand for token information. At this time, the original token analysis tools came into play, with veteran websites like Dexscreener and DEXTool quickly regaining market share and gradually replacing Birdeye. Subsequently, the emergence of GMGN packaged on-chain data into trade signals, with features such as insider trading, whale holdings, KOL positions, and smart money movements, narrowing the information gap between traders once again. This further accelerated the gameplay changes and trading pace in the meme market, making it a tool that many meme players rely on most when "on-chain scanning."

Related Reading:《Exclusive Interview with GMGN of "Meme Coin Discovery Platform": Meme is the "New Retail Era" of Asset Issuance》

Another even hotter front is in the Telegram trading bot field. Since the birth of Unibot and Banana Gun last year, "TG Bot" has quickly moved from a niche track to the mainstream spotlight. In February, Delphi Digital analyzed the profit mechanism and growth space of TG Bots such as Maestro, UniBot, and Banana Gun in a report on trading bots, and came to a very optimistic conclusion. Six months later, Banana Gun's monthly trading volume surpassed $7.4 billion, with a monthly revenue of $4.64 million.

Related Reading:《Behind the Launch of $BANANA on Binance, TG Bot Becomes the Next Must-Win Track for Trading Platforms》

Meanwhile, the competition among TG Bots in the Solana ecosystem has entered a white-hot stage. Products such as BullX, Trojan, and Photon, which pursue extreme transaction speeds, have successively entered the market, and during the peak period in November, the total daily transaction volume of TG Bots even approached $5 billion.

It has been proven that meme coins have already taken a considerable share of the CEX trading market. For most of the fourth quarter of this year, half of the top ten in Binance's cryptocurrency 24-hour trading volume rankings were MEME tokens. The daily trading volume of meme coins such as PEPE, DOGE, WIF, etc., can reach $34.54 billion, even exceeding SOL itself. In comparison, the price performance and wealth effect of "VC coins" in mainstream CEX are disappointing, and "on-chain exit" has become an option that many mid-to-low market cap project teams have to consider.

Top: Top On-Chain Product Revenue Rankings, Bottom: TG Bot Daily Trading Volume Share; Data Source: BlockBeats OPRR, Dune Analytics

Interestingly, in addition to the "Velocity Flywheel," the arms race for on-chain asset distribution and transaction efficiency has also helped participants complete the business loop. To facilitate users' one-stop interactive experience on the platform for target mining, information retrieval, and token trading, platforms such as GMGN and ABot (formerly NFT Sniper) have integrated trading APIs into users' token analysis systems.

This exploration has opened up a new trend of integrated token analysis + trading Bot, and subsequently emerged platforms such as Cash Cash Bot and DEXX have optimized the combined experience of token information and trading, even once heard the slogan of "Binance on-chain." By generating additional revenue through API fees, it has changed the past monetization method of token analysis tools relying mainly on advertising. According to Dune data statistics, during the peak of meme trading in November, the daily trading volume through the GMGN API reached as high as $90 million, while the average daily revenue generated by GMGN platform through API fees in that month was nearly $400,000.

GMGN Platform Revenue; Source: Dune Analytics

Of course, the process of on-chain defeating off-chain cannot be accomplished overnight. In the world of blockchain, no one can break the impossible triangle. While TG Bot pursues scale and speed, the security of user funds is often sacrificed. In November, DEXX experienced a sudden user asset theft incident, with a total loss of funds reaching tens of millions of US dollars. The hacker, after obtaining the stolen assets, engaged in massive sell-offs, causing a collapse in on-chain meme prices, directly impacting the duration of market liquidity prosperity.

DEX Full Outbreak

The arms race for transaction infrastructure in 2024 is not limited to the meme token field. In the previous round, Perp DEX that failed to rise on Monday, as well as the new generation DEX logic such as CLOB (Central Limit Order Book) and Intent Trading, have also experienced a full outbreak. In the fourth quarter of this year, Hyperliquid set historical price highs after the token TGE, breaking into the top 50 of the crypto market in just two weeks, surpassing even its "old home" Arbitrum, capturing the entire industry's market attention.

Hyperliquid Platform Inflows; Source: Dune Analytics

Behind the new all-time high, Hyperliquid's success is inseparable from precise "market aesthetics," keenly capturing the market pulse of this cycle's "VC Coin Meet Resistance." While refusing to take the fundraising cash-out route, the team's work in creating low-latency, high-throughput infrastructure and high-frequency trading products has also been outstanding. Of course, Hyperliquid's most innovative aspect remains its innovative listing mechanism.

Hyperliquid uses a Dutch auction to auction the token's ticker, with the listing process being open and transparent. If a project team wants to list spot trading, they need to apply for deployment permission for the HIP-1 native token, followed by using a Dutch auction mechanism to determine which project will ultimately win the token ticker.

Over the past period, some mainstream CEXs have been deeply involved in the "listing fee" public opinion whirlpool. In the CEX-dominated centralized and opaque listing market, crypto projects often need to spend a huge amount on the "listing" process. Hyperliquid provides a more economical solution that meets the demand for large exchanges that cannot be launched at the moment and also allows for low-cost listing on a decent exchange platform. After subsequent integration with HyperEVM, tokens purchased on Hyperliquid can be used in other EVMs, further highlighting its relatively superior listing cost-effectiveness.

Related Reading: "Behind the $60 Billion Sky-High Valuation, Hyperliquid Seeks to Reframe the Cryptocurrency Industry's Listing Landscape"

Comparison of Perp DEX Market Share (top) and Weekly Trading Volume (bottom), with the light green part representing Hyperliquid; Data Source: Dune Analytics

Another pleasing on-chain development comes from CowSwap. Since Binance listed COW spot trading, CowSwap and its representative narrative have once again become popular.

Due to differing views on AMM and order book trading mechanisms, DeFi protocols have gradually evolved into two technical development directions. One is the AMM on-chain LP trading pairs represented by Uniswap, and the other is the on-chain + off-chain order book settlement represented by Cowswap.

Unlike Uniswap, which calculates the final transaction price in liquidity pools as "x * y = k," Cowswap users sign specific trade intentions (such as price, asset, and quantity) on-chain, and then the rest of the work is handed over to the protocol's "solver" to be completed through on-chain + off-chain methods.

Related Reading: "Beyond MEV, You Can also Hitch a Ride on Everclear to Earn On-chain Revenue"

Although the "Layer 1 + Layer 2" solution may not sound very "Crypto Native," it has indeed brought a significant improvement in user experience. The order book and off-chain batch processing transaction method allow protocols to aggregate on-chain LP pools, peer-to-peer order books, liquidity from in-house market makers, and liquidity from CEXs. Transactions are faster, with less slippage, and users don't even need to prepare additional Gas tokens for transactions, providing an extremely smooth experience.

Recently, CowSwap, as a designated DEX by Gnosis, became the "official DEX" for Trump's DeFi project WLFI to purchase on-chain assets, once again attracting attention. It can be foreseen that in the ongoing process of Mass Adoption in the on-chain world, intent-based infrastructure represented by CowSwap will play a more significant role.

Chart 5: Percentage of Pro-Crypto Members in the US Senate and House of Representatives

In Q4 of 2024, with Trump winning the US presidential election by a landslide with 270 electoral votes and returning to the White House after 4 years, Bitcoin ended its six-month-long volatile market and started to soar. During the unprecedented "institutional bull run" in the off-chain world amidst regulatory relaxation, Trump sought enthusiastic support from the crypto community to win the election.

To win this election, Trump went all out to court the crypto industry during his campaign this year and became a staunch Bitcoin advocate. At the Bitcoin 2024 conference held in Nashville in July, Trump mentioned that if elected, he would implement a series of pro-crypto policies to ensure the US becomes the world's crypto hub and a Bitcoin superpower. These commitments include dismissing the current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, appointing a Cryptocurrency Presidential Advisory Committee, and holding Bitcoin as a strategic Bitcoin reserve for the US, among others.

Related Reading: "Trump Becomes the First "Bitcoin President" in US History"

Not only did Trump become the first Bitcoin President in the US, but the entire Congress was filled with pro-crypto officials taking office.

After Trump won the election, although many industry insiders began to hold an optimistic attitude towards clearer and more supportive regulatory policies for the future of the industry, what really excited institutions and various practitioners about crypto, and what could fundamentally reverse the pressure on cryptocurrency at the US political level, is that the US is about to usher in a brand new "Pro-Crypto Congress".

The "Crypto Gold Standard" Era in US Politics

According to Stand With Crypto data, in this election, a total of 261 pro-crypto candidates won House seats, while anti-crypto congresspeople numbered only 116. At the same time, the new Senate also leans more towards supporting cryptocurrency, with 17 supporters and 12 opponents.

Meanwhile, in this unprecedented "Bitcoin election," crypto companies also played a role. In 2024, crypto companies have become major contributors to US political donations. Coinbase and Ripple are the top enterprise political donors this year, contributing nearly 48% of the total corporate donations. Fairshake, a Super PAC established by former New York Governor's aide Josh Vlasto in 2023, has raised over $200 million to support pro-crypto candidates, becoming the highest-spending PAC in this election cycle.

Related Reading: "$40 Million Helped Republicans Take the Senate, and the Crypto Industry Bought Half of Congress in This Election"

Fairshake aims to elect pro-crypto candidates and combat skeptical opponents, receiving support from companies like Coinbase, Ripple, and Andreessen Horowitz. This funding has not only influenced presidential candidates' policies but also driven congressional election strategies supporting cryptocurrency.

An example occurred in March this year, when progressive Democratic Party star Katie Porter raised over $30 million in the California Senate election and was expected to win. However, because she adopted Elizabeth Warren's political stance and had stood on the same side as Harris on banking regulation issues, Fairshake viewed her as an "ally of the anti-crypto movement".

During the California primaries, Fairshake spent over $10 million opposing Porter, weakening her support among young voters. Through Hollywood billboards and ads targeting her comments, Fairshake claimed Porter misled voters into supporting pro-business legislation. As a result, her campaign funds were affected, ultimately preventing her from entering the fall election.

After the dust settled from the election, Musk emerged as the biggest winner outside of Trump and the Republican Party.

During his election night national address, Trump spent a significant amount of time thanking Musk. Recently, Musk has poured over $130 million as well as a significant amount of time and tweets supporting conservative politics, with Trump particularly praising Musk's rocket company SpaceX and its Starlink satellite internet, saying "We have to protect these supergeniuses," the President-elect said. During the campaign, Trump also revealed that at Musk's request, he will create a "government efficiency" position specifically to support the tech entrepreneur.

Musk is known for his opposition to government intervention, always pointing out government overreach whenever faced with fines or penalties. Therefore, his alliance with Trump, who has pledged to ease regulations, is not surprising. Apart from potential reduced government oversight, Musk's alliance with Trump could also help him secure more federal contracts. According to The New York Times, SpaceX and Tesla have received at least $15.4 billion in government contracts over the past decade. Musk's colleagues and government officials have told Reuters that the billionaire's support for Trump is also aimed at better protecting his companies from regulation and ensuring government subsidies.

After Trump announced Musk would be in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk posted the DOGE Logo image on his personal Twitter. Image Source: Musk Twitter

Furthermore, on the morning of November 13th at 9:30 AM, Trump released a statement appointing Elon Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to eliminate government bureaucracy, reduce overregulation, cut wasteful spending, and restructure federal agencies. Musk subsequently released the logo of the Department of Government Efficiency and stated, "Let's make government fun."

Related Reading: "How did $50 billion worth of Dogecoin get Musk into a new U.S. government department?"

Since then, the crypto industry has shifted from behind the scenes to the forefront, becoming a core force in American politics.

Institutional Guiding the Market: Old Coins Resurgence, DeFi Revival

With institutional involvement, the ISO20022 series tokens led by XLM, IOTA, HBAR, etc., are beginning to take off. The second half of the year sees the start of a bull market with a fundamental difference from the first half of the year. In the first half of the year, catalyzed by the ETF's positive news, the market followed the hype of memes and AI, forming a situation where "hot coins" saw much greater gains than other tokens. In the second half of the year, Trump brought a compliant breeze to crypto. ISO 20022, as the standard for electronic data exchange between financial institutions, covers the financial information transmitted between financial institutions. ISO 20022 is more advanced than the traditional formats used by banks, supporting a larger amount of data and faster processing speeds. If a token complies with ISO 20022, it will be given priority for international payments. As a result, institutions have begun large-scale acquisitions, and compliant assets have repeatedly made it to the list of top gainers.

ISO20022 Migration Timetable, Image Source: Cryptopolitan

Related Read: "How Did 'Zombie Coins' Suddenly Make a Comeback?"

If Trump initiated the institutional bull run, then DeFi has become an area that traditional old money can earliest and most easily access. One of the most representative entities is World Liberty Financial (WLFI), closely related to Trump.

WLFI was officially launched in September this year and claims to be a DeFi platform unrelated to Trump himself. However, on the WLFI website, Trump is listed as the "Chief Crypto Advocate," while his sons Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Barron Trump hold positions as "Ambassadors."

Since November this year, WLFI has made large-scale purchases of various mainstream and emerging cryptocurrencies through a major wallet address. In addition to flagship cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH, the WLFI wallet made purchases at an average price of 25.5 for LINK, 324.4 for AAVE, $1 for ENA, and $1.86 for ONDO.

WLFI Wallet's Cryptocurrency Holdings, Image Source: Arkham

As we can see, despite experiencing several pullbacks after breaking the six-digit mark and a significant plunge driven by hawkish Fed interest rate news, as of December 19, the tokens acquired by WLFI still showed strong performance within a 30-day timeframe. With the U.S. President entering the fray, all investors and institutions gained full confidence. Even after brief downturns, these tokens are expected to rebound strongly due to robust market consensus. Some vigilant institutional investors have already started to opt for "one-click follow" of Trump. For instance, ArkStream Capital doubled down on Ethena after Trump took office and reaped generous returns.

Related Reading: "ArkStream Capital: Why Did We Invest in Ethena After Trump took office?"

Following the end of the election, market funds and attention have also shifted towards these institutional strategies. Concepts like grayscale, which dominated the entire crypto sphere in 2021, are back in the spotlight, and the Coinbase 50 Index has become a secondary investment benchmark. In the era of "money picking," selecting tokens with high growth potential to maximize capital utilization has become the most crucial lesson in secondary trading. Which altcoins should you buy to outpace the market average? Instead of blindly following KOL investment calls, it's better to let grayscale and Coinbase "work" for you.

Using Grayscale's decentralized finance (DeFi) fund as an example, this fund is one of the first securities solely invested in a basket of decentralized finance applications, including targets like UNI, AAVE, LDO, MKR, and SNX. These tokens in DeFi funds have performed well post-election, with the NAV per share soaring from $13 to $35.

Grayscale DeFi Fund List and Token Performance, Image Source: Grayscale Official Website

Similarly, Grayscale's Decentralized AI Fund and mainstream coin funds have also shown outstanding performance. Apart from Grayscale, Coinbase has also begun actively positioning itself in the crypto industry. With the aim of "top companies set standards, second-rate companies build brands, third-rate companies produce products," Coinbase established COIN50, a premier global digital asset benchmark index composed of the top 50 market capitalization cryptocurrencies in a weighted manner, mirroring the S&P and Nasdaq. The tokens in the Coin50 index have also become a cryptocurrency barometer.

The COIN50 Index achieved a 68.30% return in the first 30 days after its launch, while the 90-day return reached 99.64%. This astonishing return was possible even with BTC and ETH accounting for 70% of the weight. It is evident that excluding large-cap coins such as BTC and ETH, the returns of other crypto assets within this index are quite exaggerated.

Coin50 Index, Grayscale Trust Funds, and WLFI Crypto Asset Collection, images sourced from the internet

Looking ahead to the year 2025, one can envision the existence of not only mainstream coin ETFs and crypto indices, but also potential "knockoff" ETFs. In the traditional financial markets, the first ETF, Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts (SPDR S&P 500 ETF), was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1993. From 2000 to 2009, the U.S. ETF market rapidly expanded, encompassing diverse asset categories such as broad-based, sector-specific, Smart Beta, fixed income, and commodity ETFs. The crypto market is still in its early stages compared to the mature traditional financial markets, indicating that American institutions will certainly further invest in "knockoff" ETFs and indices.

In 2024, Bitcoin's fourth halving cycle concluded with a grand finale during the institutional bull run that emerged after Trump took office!

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