Annual performance of cryptographic narratives: AI and Meme increased more than 20 times, while L2 fell 20.7% and ranked at the bottom

Original text:Coingecko

Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews

The analysis of "Top Ten Leading Projects in 2024: The highest increase exceeded 230 times, and 7 Meme coins entered the list" has attracted widespread attention. In order to gain 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 CoinGecko's market data. By tracking the performance of the top ten tokens in each theme, calculate their average return relative to the beginning of the year (or the first trading day). The study selected representative tokens with the highest market value at the end of the period, and eliminated specific public chain ecology and sectors that overlapped 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%. Followed closely by the Meme coin sector, with a return rate of 2,185.1% during the year. The yields of these two sectors are far more than twice that of other popular narrative themes.

The Meme coin sector began to take the lead significantly in March, with a single-month return soaring from 96.6% to 1,713.1%. Despite the volatility, Meme coin has maintained the highest gains for most of 2024. However, after posting an all-time high of 3,211.4% on December 9, the sector has corrected as market interest waned.

In contrast, the AI ​​sector enjoyed a strong rebound at the end of the year, with yields almost doubling from 1,598.1% to 2,939.8% in December. This is mainly due to the explosive growth of the AI ​​agent platform Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), which has also become 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 ranks third with an average annual return of 819.5%. The sector started the year solidly, with gains reaching 365.3% on April 12, before trading sideways over the next six months. In November, the RWA sector resumed its upward trend, driven by the rise in MANTRA (OM) prices.

Layer 1, DePIN and DeFi sectors performed mediocrely

Layer 1, decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) and decentralized finance (DeFi) sectors will perform 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% gain during the same period, while the DeFi sector even underperformed Bitcoin.

In other words, conservative investors could achieve gains comparable to at least three of the 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, not even as high as Ethereum’s 49.0% increase. Specifically, the GameFi sector only rose 14.7% during the year, and six of the top ten game tokens experienced declines ranging from 3.1% to 32.9%.

Layer 2 was the only sector to record negative returns this year, falling 20.7%. Amid a trend of projects seeking to launch their own Layer 2 solutions, seven of the top ten Layer 2 tokens fell in price, ranging from 6.3% to 75.3%.

The most profitable crypto narratives

Cryptocurrency narrative performance in 2024, ranked by average annual price return of its 10 largest coins: