Inventory of 7 Major Potential Tracks Worth Watching in the Second Half of 2024
In the first half of 2024, the dominance of Bitcoin, decentralized AI, the use of DePIN, the rise of Solana, and ETH staking became the main highlights of the market.
Various subfields of DeFi are also thriving under new sources of income, airdrop frenzy, and the promotion of meme coins.
Looking ahead to the second half of the year, there are 7 potential trends worth watching. At the beginning of 2024, we predicted 12 key trends and ideas to embrace the new bull market wave. Most of them have become hot topics in top cryptocurrencies, with significant growth in price trends, active users, on-chain indicators, developers, and funding activities.
After 6 months, market sentiment and the macro environment have changed. It is now time to focus on the remaining time of this year and new catalysts for early 2025.
First, you may need to prepare a cup of coffee and bookmark this article for later, as it will be a volatile journey.
Over the next six months, macroeconomic conditions and institutional adoption will be key in shaping the future development of cryptocurrencies.
U.S. macroeconomic conditions
After experiencing two years of record-high interest rates, the first rate cut may take place in September. The November U.S. presidential election is expected to see the re-election of Trump, according to market predictions. Both of these could be favorable factors for the cryptocurrency market by year-end.
Continued institutional adoption
Following the approval of the U.S. spot BTC ETF, the SEC has also approved the listing of several spot ETH ETFs, setting the tone for the market trend throughout the year. We expect institutions to delve deeper into DeFi, infrastructure, AI, and consumer applications.
Considering these factors, here are 7 exciting areas we believe are worth watching in the remaining time of 2024 and early 2025.
1. Scalability of Bitcoin and DeFi
The Bitcoin market is expanding through native crypto methods such as ETFs and Ordinals, BRC-20s, and Runes. However, scalability issues are becoming more prominent.
@Stacks
@citrea_xyz
@MerlinLayer2
@BitlayerLabs
@BSquaredNetwork
are working on BTC’s layer-two solutions.
Early Bitcoin DeFi players include
@bounce_bit
@babylon_chain
@SolvProtocol
@MezoNetwork
.
2. Ownership Economy Applications
Blockchain technology allows users to regain sovereignty over personal data, creative content, and computational resources. These applications are highly synergistic with the rise of AI and machine learning. Two areas worth noting are:
DePin:
@AethirCloud
@ionet
@rendernetwork
@Hivemapper
DeSoc:
@farcaster_xyz
@LensProtocol
3. Real World Assets
Despite an impending rate cut, we expect RWAs to benefit from a relatively higher interest rate environment. Projects focusing on tokenizing national debt include:
@OndoFinance
,
@MountainUSDM
,
@tangibleDAO
,
@MakerDAO
Institutions and ordinary lending:
@maplefinance
In addition to RWAs, support for infrastructure such as oracles (
@PythNetwork
,
@chainlink
), decentralized identity, interoperability (
@LayerZero_Labs
,
@wormhole
), and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) for data privacy (
@mindnetwork_xyz
,
@zama_fhe
) are also expected to gain momentum.
4. Web3 Games
Web3 games are emerging in various genres, from casual games like
@thenotcoin
that earn money on clicks to well-designed games like
@ParallelTCG
,
@pixels_online
,
@playSHRAPNEL
,
@PirateNation
.
A strong and sustainable in-game economy and fully on-chain operated games will be the next significant leap for Web3 games.
5. Abstracted User Experience
The current crypto user experience is decentralized and complex, involving over 100 multi-chain environments. Users face many challenges in managing wallets, interacting with dApps, and handling assets across blockchains.
Account abstraction and Paymaster have become new user onboarding standards.
But this is just the beginning.
In the next 6-9 months, new developments are expected in chain abstraction, including key management, gas abstraction, transaction abstraction, and cross-chain interoperability.
Keep an eye on the following key projects:
@ParticleNtwrk
,
@NEARProtocol
,
@EverclearOrg
,
@burnt_xion
,
@lifiprotocol
6. DeFi Subfields
A broad market rebound will bring a significant influx of funds into DeFi. While we have not seen major events like the “Uniswap moment” yet, some DeFi subfields show strong growth momentum.
Re-staking/LR:
@eigenlayer
,
@symbioticfi
,
@solayer_labs
,
@Karak_Network
,
@ether_fi
Lending:
@MorphoLabs
,
@0xfluid
,
@aave
New types of derivatives markets:
@HyperliquidX
,
@SynFuturesDefi
,
@WhalesMarket
,
@DriftProtocol
Prediction markets:
@Polymarket
,
@azuroprotocol
Yields:
@pendle_fi
7. New Infrastructure
The infrastructure field has raised over $2.58 billion in capital, becoming the largest category in venture capital, showing strong interest in expanding solutions, interoperability, modularity, and new blockchain infrastructure.
Some top funding projects include:
@monad_xyz
,
@berachain
This article is a collaborative reprint from:
Deep Tide