Coingecko: What will be the most popular crypto narrative in 2024?

Author: Lim Yu Qian, CoinGecko; Compiler: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

What will be the most popular cryptocurrency narrative in 2024?

The most popular crypto narrative of 2024 so far is the meme coin narrative , which has attracted a total of 30.67% of global investor interest among major meme coin narratives and 25 meme coin trends. In other words, as the market rapidly expands from dog-related memecoins to other animal- and personality-themed memecoins, nearly a third of crypto narrative interest this year is focused on more speculative opportunities than on Pay attention to fundamentals.

Specifically, the main meme coin narrative ranks first with a 14.36% crypto narrative interest share. This is an increase of 6.04 percentage points from last year’s Meme coin narrative interest share of 8.32%.

In addition to the overall meme coin narrative, four meme coin trends managed to break into the top 20 cryptocurrency narratives: Solana meme coin ranked 4th with a 7.65% share of narrative interest , Base meme coin ranked 11th with a 2.13% share, As well as AI meme ranked 15th with 1.49% and cat-themed meme coins ranked 16th with 1.19% share.

AI-related narratives attracted 16% of investor interest

Another popular cryptocurrency narrative in 2024 is the artificial intelligence (AI) narrative, which collectively accounts for 15.67% of investor interest across the entire AI narrative and 5 other AI-related narratives.

Artificial intelligence ranked second in overall popularity this year, accounting for 12.58% of investor interest. Despite an increase of 1.26 percentage points compared to last year’s 11.32% interest share, AI narratives have still declined in popularity compared to meme coin narratives.

In addition to the overall AI narrative and AI meme currency trends, AI agent narrative also entered the top 20 with a 1.17% investor interest share.

RWA and DePIN in the spotlight

Other popular cryptocurrency narratives that will receive more attention in 2024 than the previous year are the Real World Assets (RWA) and DePIN narratives.

RWA's investor interest share increased by 2.16 percentage points, from 6.48% in 2023 to 8.64% in 2024. As a result, its popularity ranking rose from sixth to third. Likewise, the DePIN narrative rose from 13th to 8th in popularity rankings, increasing its investor interest share by 1.56 percentage points.

On the other hand, the popularity of GameFi narrative has declined, with its investor interest share falling by 6.77 percentage points from 10.49% in 2023 to 3.72% in 2024.

Growing interest in Solana and Base-related narratives

Solana-related narratives attracted a total of 14.30% of investor interest, trailing AI narratives in popularity. Although the Solana meme coin attracted nearly half of the attention, investors remained interested in the broader Solana ecosystem, which ranked fifth with 5.78% investor interest. The Pump.fun narrative itself accounted for only 0.61% of investor interest, which may reflect its overlap with the Solana meme coin narrative.

Meanwhile, two Base-related narratives also entered the top 20 this year as the blockchain's popularity grows. Overall, the Base ecosystem and Base meme coin narrative accounted for 4.87% of investor interest.

Overall, 5 out of 67 blockchain ecosystems feature in the top 20 cryptocurrency narratives of 2024. In addition to Solana and Base, these popular blockchain ecosystem narratives include the Ethereum ecosystem (investor interest share of 1.82%), the Sui ecosystem (1.04%); and the TON ecosystem (0.85%).

The Most Popular Cryptocurrency Narratives of 2024

The 20 most popular cryptocurrency narratives of 2024 (ranked by market share of annual investor interest) are as follows:

Of the 200 different cryptocurrency narratives that received attention this year, the top 20 cryptocurrency narratives collectively accounted for 78.72% of global investor interest. The remaining 21.28% of crypto narrative interest is spread across 180 narratives.

The Most Popular Cryptocurrency Narratives of 2023

Ranked by investor interest share from January 1 to December 21, 2023, the 15 most popular cryptocurrency narratives in 2023 are: