jakiro
Author: Stella L (stella@footprint.network) , data source: Footprint Analytics Public Chain Research Page
In July, the cryptocurrency market performed actively and had a large volatility, which reflected the overall trend of the global financial market.The listing of spot Ethereum ETP in the United States, coupled with the high praise from former US President Trump for Bitcoin, all show the resilience and huge growth potential of the cryptocurrency industry.The market situation is complex and changeable, and Bitcoin price gradually stabilizes, while Solana has become one of the most outstanding currencies; at the same time, Ethereum has encountered a certain degree of downward pressure after its ETP listing.During this wave of fluctuations, the total market value of public chain cryptocurrencies has increased slightly, mainly driven by key projects such as Bitcoin and Solana.With increasingly fierce competition in the Layer 2 field, emerging innovative projects and emerging forces are reshaping the competitive landscape of the industry.
The data in this report comes from Footprint Analytics’ public chain research page.This page provides an easy-to-use dashboard that contains the most critical statistics and metrics in the public chain field and is updated in real time.
Crypto Market Overview
In July, volatility across the financial market increased.Large tech stocks and AI-related stocks that led the gains in the first half of the year performed poorly.The crypto industry has made important progress, including the launch of spot Ethereum exchange-traded products (ETPs) and the active endorsement of Bitcoin by former President Trump, a Republican presidential candidate.
Price performance in July showed a differentiation trend.At the end of the month, the impact of the German government’s sale of Bitcoin weakened (ends on July 13), and Mt Gox’s reimbursement allocation to its users had limited impact on the market, and Bitcoin ended with a slight increase in the month despite fluctuations in the month.In addition to Bitcoin, Solana’s performance was particularly eye-catching, with a monthly increase of 25%.In contrast, Ethereum’s price declined after launching Ethereum ETP in the US market.Although these ETPs supported Ethereum prices before the launch, subsequent selling pressure caused prices to fall.
Public chain overview
As of the end of July, the total market value of public chain cryptocurrencies rose 1.2% from June to $1.98 trillion.The market leaders are Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain and Solana, with market shares of 64.8%, 19.7%, 4.3% and 4.1% respectively.Bitcoin’s absolute share value increased by 1.5%, Solana increased by 0.6%, while Ethereum fell by 1.5%.
Data source: Percentage of market value of public chain tokens in July 2024
In July, the cryptocurrency market experienced significant volatility.Bitcoin started at $62,923 at the beginning of the month and closed at $64,938 at the end of the month, achieving a 3.2% increase.On July 5, Bitcoin hit its monthly low of $56,608, while on July 27, it reached its peak of $68,806.Ethereum opened from $3,438 and fell to $3,243 at the end of the month, a drop of 5.7%.On July 7, Ethereum hit a month’s lowest price of $2,939 and reached its highest price of $3,542 on July 21.
Source: Bitcoin and Ether price trends
Solana’s token price rose 18.2% and its market capitalization increased by 18.9%.The Meme coin craze continues, and the on-chain activities are active.For example, several Neiro tokens soared after Doge Memecoin-inspired owners announced adoption of a 10-year-old rescue of Shiba Inu Neiro.
Kaspa continued to maintain strong performance, with the price of token KAS rising 14.5% and the market cap rising 15.7%.KAS hit a new all-time high of more than $0.2 in July.BlockDAG (Block Directed Acyclic Graph) technology has attracted increasing attention, especially after Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital (MARA) announced last month that it would diversify its mining operations and expand to Kaspa.
Source: Price and market value of public chain tokens at the end of July 2024
In terms of total lock-up value (TVL), the TVL of the public chain reached US$76.5 billion at the end of July, basically the same as in June.Ethereum, TRON and BNB Chain continue to lead in TVL.
TON has become the fifth largest chain by token market value, but there is still a lot of room for growth in its DeFi field, with its TVL ranking ninth among public chains at $770 million.The TVL of the two decentralized exchanges, STON.fi and DeDust, accounts for more than 60%.
Core Blockchain’s TVL grew 122.5% throughout the month, thanks to the launch of the Dual Staking model.This model rewards users who stake Bitcoin for a long time in Core, and when they stake CORE at the same time, their BTC staking rewards will be increased.
Data source: Public Chain TVL at the end of July 2024
Polymarket, the decentralized forecasting market on Polygon, stood out in a month of volatile and price performance.Polymarket allows users to build portfolios based on their forecasts, and if the forecast is correct, they can earn returns.Using blockchain technology, Polymarket ensures transparency, security and tamper-free transactions on a wide range of topics such as current major events, political and public health issues.The U.S. election brought additional attention to Polymarket, with its TVL doubled in July.
The development of major Layer 1 public chains in July 2024
BNB Chain
-
On July 18, BNB Chain officially announced that it will host the “Become a Champion Builder” hackathon in the third quarter of 2024, with a bonus pool of more than $500,000.
-
BNB Chain’s second Sunset fork plan has been completed,
Solana
-
Solana launches a $400,000 grant program for developers of Solana Actions and Blinks Tools.
NEAR
-
Grayscale officially launched the decentralized AI Fund LLC, a decentralized artificial intelligence fund, in which Near is the highest-weighted asset in the fund.
Sui
-
Sui announces the launch of the Sui indexing framework, providing customizable access to data on the Sui chain.
Polygon
-
Polygon launches the new ZK proof system “Plonky3” as an open source toolkit, which will be more universal than “Plonky2”.
-
Move language developer Movement Labs joins Polygon’s AggLayer.
Ronin
-
Sky Mavis releases a review of the first half of 2024, with more than 3 million users downloading Ronin wallets over the past 6 months, and RON’s daily active address soaring to an all-time high of 1.5 million.
Ton
-
TON Blockchain will release the new Layer 2 network based on Polygon technology.
-
The TON Foundation partnered with Mocaverse, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, to launch a $20 million ecological development program.
Core
-
Core announced that Animoca Brands has launched a verification node on the chain to support Core’s security and decentralization.
-
The Core Foundation announced a dual staking model to increase Bitcoin staking income.
Layer 2
In July, Ethereum Layer 2 experienced a slight fluctuation in the context of spot Ethereum ETPs’ price retracement after the launch of the US market.Arbitrum One, Optimism and Base lead TVL market share, holding 59.8%, 20.2%, and 8.27%, respectively, but each has less than 5% growth per month.
With on-chain activity falling after the airdrop ended, Blast’s TVL fell by 14.3% and zkSync Era TVL dropped by 11.5%.
Scroll’s TVL grew 13.2%, driven by the campaign of Scroll Canvas, a platform for collecting and displaying achievements, status and on-chain certificates in the Scroll ecosystem.Users can interact with various projects in the ecosystem to achieve achievements in the form of “badges”.
Source: Overview of Ethereum Layer 2 in July 2024 – Rollups (Bridge-related metrics)
On the other hand, Bitcoin expansion solutions, including Layer 2 and sidechain, continued to grow in July, although the total TVL was below its June high.Merlin, Bitlayer and Rootstock accounted for the largest TVL market share, with 44.0%, 19.6% and 10.3% respectively.
Solv Protocol became the largest DeFi protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem at the end of July, with its TVL of $570 million, accounting for 32.3% of the total TVL of Bitcoin expansion solutions.
Data source: Bitcoin Eco-Public Chain TVL
The Layer 2 track is becoming more and more competitive.A new project called TON Applications Chain (TAC) is developing a Layer 2 solution for the TON blockchain ecosystem.Powered by The Open Platform, an investor focused on TON blockchain, TAC will leverage Polygon’s Chain Development Kit (CDK).
Meanwhile, the first Move EVM Layer2 Movement blockchain launched the public test network Parthenon, which was officially launched on July 30.Movement’s MOVEDROP project allows the community to participate in the process of testing network to mainnet.
The development of major Layer 2 public chains in July 2024
Arbitrum
-
The Arbitrum community has released a proposal to vote on “Allow the deployment of new Orbit chains on any blockchain”, planning to open permissions to deploy Orbit chains on networks outside Ethereum.
Optimism
-
Optimism announced the results of Retro Funding 4, and plans to provide 10 million OP rewards to 207 projects, of which Zora and Layer 3 received 500,000 OPs respectively.
Starknet
-
Starknet derivatives trading agreement ZKX founder Eduard announced that ZKX will cease operations.
Base
-
American politicians can accept cryptocurrency donations on the Base chain.
Merlin Chain
-
Merlin Chain joins hands with Ordzaar and OrdinSwap to launch the “Fourth Major Ordinal” whitelist campaign.
Rootstock
-
Rootstock announced that it will host its first ecosystem summit on August 1.
Blockchain Games
In July, a total of 1,588 games were active on major blockchain networks.BNB Chain, Polygon and Ethereum dominated the market, accounting for 21.7%, 19.0% and 15.1% of the market share, respectively.
Ronin, opBNB and Saakuru Verse lead in on-chain DAUs, with an average daily DAU of 1.1 million, 479,600 and 354,500 respectively in the month.At the end of July, their DAU market share was 32.6%, 18.7% and 3.4% respectively.
Data source: Daily active users of each public chain blockchain game
Ronin’s DAU market share grew significantly from 18.6% on July 1 to 32.6% on July 31, thanks to the recovery of Pixels data and the launch of new games Lumiterra and Fight League.In addition, games on Ronin perform well in user retention and frequently appear on the weekly new user retention rankings.For example, in the last week of July, five games ranked among the top ten new users’ retention.
opBNB’s DAU share rose from 13.1% to 18.7% in July, thanks to the growing popularity of its games MEET48 and SERAPH: In The Darkness.In particular, SERAPH: In The Darkness, the dark fantasy ARPG game, has gained significant attention on opBNB since its launch in mid-July.
Oasys Layer 2 Saakuru Verse saw a significant increase in DAU in the last 10 days of the end of June, but slowed in July, with DAU market share falling from 14.1% at the beginning of the month to 3.4% at the end of the month.Nevertheless, Saakuru maintains the third highest average DAU across all chains.Saakuru’s unique proxy model, namely, chain operators (AAGs) bear transaction costs, allowing users and developers to complete interactions without paying Gas fees, significantly lowering the entry threshold.
Base’s DAU soared from 8.2K to 222.5K in a month, with an average DAU of 101.6K, a growth driven primarily by the gaming BLOCKLORDS Dynasty.
For more trends in the blockchain game industry, you can read “July 2024 Blockchain Game Research Report: Challenges and Opportunities of Market Volatility and Data Differentiation”.
Financing situation
In July, the public chain industry recorded nine rounds of financing events, totaling US$570 million, a decrease of 20.1% from June.Two of the incidents were not disclosed and no new financing rounds were announced by Layer 1.
Public chain financing event in July 2024 (Data source: crypto-fundraising.info)
Pudgy Penguins’ parent company Igloo raised $11 million in a financing round led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.Igloo has launched Cube Labs to develop Abstract, a consumer-facing Layer 2 blockchain built on Matter Labs’ ZK Stack and EigenLayer’s EigenDA.This new blockchain is designed to make decentralized application development easier, cheaper and safer.
As the number of Layer 2 solutions continues to grow, the infrastructure that supports these Layer 2 is becoming a good business.In July, Ethereum Rollup deployment platform Caldera and Web3 AI infrastructure developer Network3 received new financing.
