The Block Researchers' 2024 Outlook: Bitcoin ETFs Will Be Approved, Bullish on RWA, DePin, and AI
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The Block Researchers' 2024 Outlook: Bitcoin ETFs Will Be Approved, Bullish on RWA, DePin, and AI
Driven by the risk environment, investors generally expect cryptocurrency prices to rise in 2024.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: The Block Research
Translation: TechFlow
Recently, The Block Research team forecasted developments for 2024. Their analyst team made predictions about new trends, narratives, and expectations they believe will shape the coming year, including thoughts on how artificial intelligence will play a role in crypto, whether Bitcoin ETFs will be approved, and more.
TechFlow has translated the full report—details below.
Shared Predictions
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Driven by macro risk sentiment, investors broadly expect cryptocurrency prices to rise in 2024;
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Spot Bitcoin ETFs will be approved in Q1 2024;
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Bullish narratives include RWA, DePin, and artificial intelligence;
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Coinbase's strong performance will benefit institutional adoption of crypto;
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The activation of proto-danksharding/EIP-4844 will increase the adoption rate of Ethereum-based rollups;
Analyst Predictions
George Calle
The total market capitalization of the crypto market, along with major cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, and SOL), will appreciate in 2024 amid a generally favorable risk appetite environment. Crypto assets will broadly outperform broader equity and tech industry indices. Cash-settled BTC ETFs will launch at the beginning of Q1, but Bitcoin’s dominance will wane as investors shift toward alternatives with greater upside potential.
The Dencun upgrade, introducing proto-danksharding, will occur at the end of Q1 or beginning of Q2 2024. This will drive a fundamentals-led rebound in L2 tokens and their ecosystems as net profit margins improve. It will also fuel a speculative cycle around platforms serving the broader modular blockchain stack.
The DeFi sector will benefit from financial and technological innovations in 2023. On the financial front, the growth of liquid staking protocols in 2023 will allow staking yields to permeate into a wider range of DeFi products, such as interest-bearing stablecoins, thereby raising the industry-wide “risk-free rate.” Technologically, new yield-optimizing DeFi products will begin leveraging account abstraction and cross-chain protocols to deliver multi-leg and cross-chain strategies to users.
The DePIN sector will experience a revival as the practical or perceived utility of decentralized AI infrastructure grows. Given AI’s need for computing power, datasets, storage, and potentially a universal exchange unit, this rally could touch many existing DePIN participants while also fostering new entrants.
In public markets, Coinbase will continue to be the top-performing crypto stock, driven by several factors:
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Its role as custodian for multiple approved ETFs,
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Growth in international markets and launch of related exchange-traded products in the U.S.,
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Potential benefits from developing L2 solutions
Additionally, Circle may go public, but its performance will be relatively muted due to shrinking stablecoin market share and risks of reduced profitability from potential rate cuts.
Steven Zheng
In 2024, we’ll see the module vs. integrated approach finally come into play. Ethereum will roll out proto-danksharding and, alongside modular protocols like EigenLayer and Celestia, truly spark a wave of appchain rollups—we’re already seeing versions of this in OP Stack. I predict we’ll see at least 20 “Ethereum Alliance” appchains with TVL reaching or exceeding $1 billion. On the integrated side, the resurgence of Solana and Sei Network, coupled with Monad’s anticipated launch, will showcase the power of parallel processing/execution. I expect two Layer 1 blockchains focused primarily on parallelization to enter the top 10 by market cap.
Coinbase will become a $500 billion company. The first Bitcoin ETF will break inflow records for ETF launches. An Ethereum ETF will not be approved. Amid AI hype, decentralized computing will emerge as a fresh narrative. Among the top 10 tokens by market cap (excluding stablecoins and wrapped assets), two will be memecoins. NFT season will see a revival of activity triggered by limited airdrops from major markets and projects. In 2024, Ordinals will account for 25% of Bitcoin miner fee revenue.
Eden Au
From a price perspective, spot BTC ETF approval is a “sell the news” event. Nevertheless, Bitcoin reaches a new all-time high. During spot ETF speculation, ETH outperforms BTC. Similarly, as Coinbase becomes the preferred custodian for key spot ETFs, COIN outperforms BTC. TIA stands out due to community discussions around (overly) extreme blockchain modularity and remains unaffected by the Q4 “bullish unlock” event.
On scaling, the successful implementation of EIP-4844 has no significant short-term impact on L2 adoption. Arbitrum One and OP Mainnet remain the most popular L2s. Application-specific L3s are launched. Meanwhile, certain Cosmos sidechains generate organic traffic through Noble’s adoption of native USDC.
In DeFi, (re)staking creates a liquidity black hole, absorbing large amounts of ETH.
Derivatives DEXs become the best-performing exchanges due to improved user experience and market recovery. Tokenized securities and private credit continue growing, driven by the emergence of RWA-focused lending protocols. Prediction markets recover ahead of the U.S. presidential election.
NFT trading volume gradually recovers, but OG collections like CryptoPunks and BAYC do not set new all-time highs in floor price. Ordinals critics attempt to fork Bitcoin but fail. In AAA gaming, Parallel and Illuvium see explosive adoption among crypto-native users, catalyzing a “GameFi season.”
Conversely, social, privacy, and insurance sectors experience stagnation. Despite narrative momentum, AI-related products struggle to find product-market fit.
Brandon Kae
The AI sub-sector within crypto could be one of the top performers this year. Key issues with traditional models—centralization and regulatory challenges—may drive growing interest in open-source, “decentralized” AI/ML development. Additionally, crypto enables market participants to invest in and speculate on AI-related opportunities unavailable in traditional markets, further fueling narrative-driven hype.
At least one AI-related project will enter the top 10 by market cap by year-end, with many others reaching billion-dollar valuations.
ETH/BTC year-end price will be higher than at the start of the year, but the “flippening” won’t happen.
Telegram trading bots will undergo product improvements enhancing user experience and remain popular among market participants, despite inherent security risks.
At least one NFT collection will surpass BAYC in market cap, launch its own token, and gain broad recognition from non-crypto investors.
Abraham Eid
As traditional finance increasingly focuses on tokenizing securities, we’ll see numerous acquisitions of crypto-native infrastructure platforms, enabling investment firms, banks, and financial market infrastructures to accelerate their digital asset offerings. We’ll also see more large investment firms tokenize ETFs and money market funds on-chain, similar to Franklin Templeton’s Benji Investments FOBXX fund.
Despite increased positive speculation aided by exponential progress in generative AI, Web3 gaming will continue struggling to find product-market fit.
DeFi’s biggest source of product innovation will come from new real-world asset tokenization platforms expanding into major existing areas like private credit and U.S. Treasuries.
Specialized DePIN networks for digital goods like compute, storage, and bandwidth will continue emerging, becoming competitive against some traditional infrastructure providers in hyper-local markets.
Technology categories combining cryptography and AI advantages, such as zero-knowledge machine learning, will attract heavy speculation and venture funding, but still fall short of the technical maturity needed for mass adoption.
Carlos Guzman
The theme of 2024 will be the revival of cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Bullish sentiment early in the year will be driven by anticipation of Bitcoin ETF approvals, which will ultimately happen in Q1. However, the approval itself will act more like a “sell the news” event, failing to sustainably boost Bitcoin’s price in the short term. ETF inflows will be substantial but not massive initially.
The overall crypto market cap will continue being driven by macro and liquidity conditions, with everyone watching the Fed. Due to lagging effects of high interest rates on household and corporate debt leading to broader economic slowdown, initial crypto excitement in Q1 may fade. The U.S. may enter recession, or even if it achieves a soft landing, macro indicators early in the year will be weak. On the other hand, weak macro data may prompt the Fed to signal rate cuts, triggering a crypto rebound in the second half.
Current enthusiasm around Solana will cool early in the year, with Bitcoin dominating the market ahead of the halving. After the halving, however, we’ll see Bitcoin lose dominance as altcoins broadly outperform. ETH and L2 tokens will rebound supported by EIP-4844 implementation, thanks to lower fees and new scalability narratives. As market bets shift toward integrated smart contract platforms, Alt-L1s will also rise. Under this narrative, platforms like Aptos, Sui, Sei, Solana, Monad, and NEAR will come into focus.
Privacy-enabled smart contract platforms will be a major topic all year as Aztec, Aleo, and Mina launch fully functional, smart contract-capable mainnets. Debates over transaction data privacy versus compliance on privacy-centric chains will persist, addressed through novel solutions in privacy-preserving identity and proof-of-innocence protocols.
Stablecoin market cap will keep growing, but leading USDT and USDC will lose some market share amid rising competition from yield-generating stablecoins. TRON will lose its dominance as the leading low-cost platform for stablecoin transfers as awareness increases of other low-fee, low-latency chains and rival centralized exchanges take market share from Binance. This trend will negatively impact USDT while benefiting competitors.
2024 will be a record year for institutional adoption, driven by maturing infrastructure and new yield opportunities. More crypto-savvy institutions will use application-specific rollups/chains/subnets to create environments interoperable with public chains, interacting with chosen counterparties via innovations like smart contract hooks. As traditional finance yields possibly decline in the second half, institutional staking products will regain interest. CeFi lending will revive, now incorporating DeFi elements for greater transparency and trustlessness. RWA growth will continue, with interest in tokenized Treasuries expanding into higher-yielding assets like corporate and consumer debt.
2024 will also be a record year for smart contract hacks and exploits. As deploying L2s and L3s becomes easier and more common, we’ll see the first major L2 exploit. Security will become the biggest barrier to mass adoption, prompting renewed industry focus on solving it.
Jaiden Percheson
Another sovereign nation may adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, likely in Africa or Latin America. The intersection of AI and blockchain will be one of the most hyped themes of 2024, with the total market cap of cryptocurrencies excluding BTC and ETH reaching at least $1 trillion.
Many crypto stocks will perform well, especially Coinbase and Bitcoin mining firms. Coinbase hits a new all-time high, and spot Bitcoin ETF approval boosts institutional interest via strong initial inflows.
ETH/BTC won’t reach new highs, but ETH will still receive significant attention due to traffic generated by expected upgrades (e.g., EIP-4844) and high potential for ETF approval. Re-staking becomes another hot narrative, helping Eigenlayer surpass $10 billion in TVL.
Simon Cousaert
Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology will be more widely adopted across numerous projects. This will enable more private transactions, efficient scalability solutions (like zk-rollups), and improved interoperability across blockchain networks. ZKP adoption paves the way for more advanced, data-intensive on-chain applications, though not yet at scale by 2024.
Following the initial frenzy of DeFi Summer 2020, a more mature landscape of revenue-generating opportunities will emerge. This evolution stems largely from the transition to proof-of-stake consensus, particularly post-Merge, unlocking yield potential for established assets like ETH and their staking/re-staking models.
As the industry matures and legal frameworks evolve, RWA-focused applications are expected to gain traction, albeit less than many anticipate.
Arnold Toh
Cosmos adoption will finally rival that of major L1s like Ethereum and Solana. Osmosis and Celestia will lead this wave of adoption.
L2s will continue surging, with some starting to merge or sunset. zkEVMs won’t prove superior to zkVMs (e.g., Starknet will remain in the top 3 ZKRs among many zkEVMs). ZKRs launch governance tokens, sparking another wave of airdrop farming and bringing significant on-chain activity to ZKR ecosystems.
With a lack of new DeFi narratives on Ethereum, re-staking becomes Ethereum’s dominant narrative. EigenLayer will be central to this story.
Web3 gaming will take off, likely led by games like Illuvium and Parallel. P2E gaming will fade, replaced by incentives for players to trade in-game NFTs.
Marcel Bluhm
Institutional participation in crypto will grow further in 2024. First, due to institutional involvement in upcoming U.S. spot ETFs and complex derivatives tied to them. Second, widespread adoption of real-world assets involving mature institutional players will favor tailored infrastructure, particularly appchains, which will leverage the trend by offering customized solutions that maintain connectivity with public blockchain rails.
Bitcoin will maintain its dominance in market cap, while the Ethereum ecosystem continues to dominate as the primary smart contract platform. Meanwhile, Solana will intensify competition, rising to third place in market cap and challenging Ethereum’s position. Total crypto market cap, driven by macro/liquidity factors, will hit new all-time highs during 2024 but finish the year below those peaks.
2024 will be the year of the first on-chain game beloved by actual gamers—a title with crypto elements that combines compelling gameplay with innovative tokenomics to power its on-chain economy.
The U.S. President will use executive authority to remove Gary Gensler (current SEC Chair) in summer 2024. He will also issue a presidential “Gens-Rekt” NFT series commemorating the event.
Mohamed Ayadi
Rollup competition will intensify in 2024, with the Ethereum ecosystem witnessing a significant surge in the number of Layer-2s created and developed, particularly zero-knowledge-driven rollups and dApp-specific rollups. This growth will be so substantial that the number of rollups deployed on Ethereum may exceed the total number of active dApps on some of these rollups. We’ll see current dApps building their own rollup and bridging infrastructure, causing space congestion (and confusion for newcomers), with only a few rollups achieving user activity levels comparable to major Layer-1s. However, despite the rollup boom, much of the activity surge will be driven by airdrop farmers rather than long-term users. The flood of rollup launches and bridging requirements will further degrade and complicate the Ethereum user experience, leading to more bridge-related hacks—highlighting the importance of stronger wallet solutions and infrastructure improvements to enable mass adoption of modular blockchains.
With anticipated approval of spot Bitcoin (and possibly Ethereum) ETFs, activity and growth in real-world assets (RWA) and related protocols will increase. However, many teams will choose to wait for clarity rather than rush innovation due to concerns over regulatory scrutiny and SEC legal actions, thus hindering the sector’s growth pace. Spot ETF approval will send a green light to traditional finance and tech firms to strengthen public and private blockchain R&D programs by late 2024 and into 2025. A major beneficiary of ETF initiatives will be Coinbase, which will continue expanding its international footprint and may achieve new revenue and profit highs by late 2024 and 2025, making it a Wall Street favorite.
Additionally, Layer-0 networks like Polkadot and Cosmos will continue growing and evolving, but may still receive less attention compared to newer, less modular but shinier L1s and L2s. Conversely, Solana will see significant growth in both ecosystem and market cap (solidifying itself as the new third place instead of BNB Chain), hosting new types of dApps and trends more geared toward retail investors—something difficult on Ethereum. With its low transaction costs and user-friendly wallets, Solana will reshape common beginner investment narratives, positioning Solana alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum as one of the “safer” crypto investments.
Rebecca Stevens
Approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs will help drive crypto adoption and enable many mainstream crypto assets to outperform more traditional assets throughout the year.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs trigger a surge in institutional interest, widening the bridge between DeFi and TradFi. In turn, as more types of traditional financial instruments move on-chain, tokenized real-world assets gain greater adoption.
While Ethereum continues to dominate the smart contract space, other networks (alternative L1s and L2s to Ethereum itself) begin significantly eating into its market share, as interest grows in new protocols and narratives under more bullish market conditions. Overall, DeFi shows strong recovery, with monthly DEX trading volume hitting new all-time highs.
Ordinals continue driving the NFT scene, with infrastructure for Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens continuing to evolve. While the market broadly recovers, many previously popular PFP NFT collections don’t see hype return to 2021 levels. Gaming NFTs will be more popular than art and collectibles.
Jae Oh Song
As Bitcoin ETFs and the halving approach, Bitcoin may show strong performance. There could be a “buy the rumor, sell the news” price pattern, but a bearish trend is unlikely to persist through Q1 as institutional capital begins flowing in at scale.
VC funding for Web3 startups is expected to rebound, reaching an all-time high for the year. VCs will show interest in new narratives like decentralized AI. However, a large portion of funding may flow into NFT gaming and infrastructure, as these areas offer VCs more tangible reference points and clearer stages of business development.
Due to growing institutional demand for hedging spot exposure from ETF implementations, crypto options trading volume is expected to reach historic highs. Beyond VC and ETF-linked institutions, traditional hedge funds and quant funds are expected to expand into crypto, driven by large capital inflows.
In the competitive L1/L2 landscape, Solana is expected to surpass existing L1s and maintain its dominant narrative throughout the cycle. Other L1s will need to demonstrate competitive advantages or may choose to acknowledge Solana’s dominance, focusing on Solana interoperability as a selling point and positioning themselves as beta versions in the market.
As market participants begin speculating on spot Ethereum ETF approval, existing L2 projects (e.g., Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon) may see parabolic growth. When such a narrative forms, tokenless projects like Manta, Scroll, and Starknet could see massive momentum in TVL and ecosystem growth as investors speculate on potential airdrops.
Edvin Memet
As the market heats up, participants will spend more time hunting for rising coins than participating in airdrops. In response, users may turn to airdrop service providers, potentially driving speculative growth in that category’s market cap, especially when the first successful proof-of-concept emerges.
Memecoin market cap will reach at least $75B, up from nearly $25B today. As the market saturates, newer memecoins will perform better due to clearer differentiation. Emerging memecoins will break $1B in market cap.
ETH staking ratio will continue growing steadily at ~1% per month. As a result, LDO/ETH will break all-time highs. ETH will perform well, possibly better than BTC. However, as the space gets crowded, L2s may not outperform ETH. Regardless, many top L1s from the last cycle will outperform L2s. “Solana killers” will emerge, with candidates including Sei, Aptos, NEAR, Sui, etc. Sei and NEAR will surpass all of them, including Solana.
Spot Bitcoin ETF approval will positively impact price but not significantly affect on-chain activity. Therefore, onboarding and educating new users will become critical—whether through NFTs/Ordinals, gaming, social platforms, trading bots, or education and certification programs. The “Telegram bot” category will continue to be disrupted and fragmented by new entrants, but hasn’t yet effectively driven standardized adoption. NEAR is expected to perform well due to its focus on UX and onboarding strategy. NFT projects like Pudgy Penguins that have potential to enter mainstream consciousness are also expected to thrive.
Florence Kuria
By 2024, memes like Shiba are expected to thrive, driven by large communities and transitioning to their own blockchain, enabling further growth. For example, Shibarium, a Layer 2 network using SHIB tokens for transaction fees, is expected to enhance Shiba Inu’s credibility in DeFi. However, legacy memecoins like Doge may lose market share to newer ones like BONK on Solana, as investors increasingly favor these novel tokens.
Atharv Deshpande
Crypto markets are expected to outperform broader equity markets in 2024, with COIN being a notable exception. Despite predictions, ETH’s market cap will not surpass BTC’s, nor will SOL surpass ETH’s. Launching Bitcoin ETFs will initially calm the market, followed by massive liquidity flowing into Bitcoin. This surge will initially favor Bitcoin, but expected Ethereum ETF approval will ignite a bullish trend for ETH. Liquid staking on Ethereum is currently the strongest narrative in the ecosystem and is expected to gain massive traction.
As Ethereum introduces danksharding and emphasizes modularity, appchains will be strengthened, enhancing the potential of application-specific blockchains. Additionally, 2024 will see increased L2 adoption, with significant price movements in Arbitrum (ARB) and Optimism (OP).
By year-end 2024, the collective market cap of memecoins is expected to exceed $50 billion. Following BONK’s 2023 trend, another meme is expected to achieve unicorn status in 2024.
L1 blockchains will continue dominating the top 100 crypto market cap rankings. However, L2 solutions and memecoins will gain increasing share, indicating a diversifying and evolving crypto landscape.
Kevin Peng
2024 will be a transformative year for the crypto industry, with BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF approval triggering a new wave of institutional interest. Improved on-chain tools will bring on-chain activity to all-time highs, enabling more memes and grassroots tokens to launch. Most Web3 companies will quickly be eliminated, but a select few will survive and rank among the top 25 by market cap this year.
The surge in on-chain activity will push blockchains to new heights and refocus market attention on the ongoing debate between integrated vs. modular systems. Divisions between supporters of each approach will deepen, but both sides will benefit from investor capital allocation. Integrated blockchains supporting parallel execution will rapidly gain popularity, while deployment of functional data availability and zk-rollup scaling solutions will renew focus and support for L2s. Multi-chain protocols will also benefit from these narratives, with existing Cosmos chains becoming more vertically integrated and interoperable. Solana will continue its recovery to become the third-largest blockchain by market cap.
AI will emerge as a strong narrative, spawning countless new protocols trying to capture investor attention in the space. Crypto will see a new use case: decentralized value exchange for a wide range of AI-powered services. But the fusion of AI and crypto ultimately won’t produce protocols or companies capable of achieving sustainable product-market fit. The crypto gaming industry will continue maturing, occasionally gaining mainstream attention, but mostly improving acceptance among hardcore gamers—laying foundations for future growth.
Lars Hoffmann
In 2024, the crypto industry finally welcomes the first U.S. Bitcoin ETF. Multiple ETFs will be approved simultaneously, and more advanced Bitcoin products will appear in TradFi. While a huge win for the industry, this looks bad for Gensler and the SEC, who are essentially forced by court rulings to allow Bitcoin ETFs. After approval, attention will shift to the first U.S. Ethereum ETF, helping the Ethereum ecosystem finally gain momentum.
In the U.S., both SBF and CZ will be found guilty and imprisoned, though SBF will face a much harsher sentence. Market performance in Q4 2023 leaves the FTX ecosystem intact overall. Nonetheless, FTX customers won’t get their assets back soon. Growing concern centers on how bankruptcy proceedings fail to serve FTX customer interests. The U.S. election in September 2024 will be crucial for how the U.S. treats crypto going forward. Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea will continue advancing on their current pro-crypto policy paths, with Hong Kong becoming bolder to recover business losses Singapore suffered during pandemic lockdowns.
While 2023’s activity was mainly driven by institutions and established players, 2024 will bring back more genuine users. The surge in on-chain activity will again raise fees, push blockchains to their limits, and reignite alternative L1 narratives. New ecosystem participants will join Solana and other alternative L1s instead of Ethereum. The modular vs. monolithic debate will echo again within the Ethereum ecosystem as many L2s fail to attract meaningful economic activity. Together, these trends will force serious questions within the Ethereum ecosystem about its future direction. Additionally, new ecosystem entrants will propel gaming projects and memecoins to new heights. As traditional media refocuses on PFPs, NFTs will again receive intense attention.
Edvinas Rupkus
2024 will be another memorable year for crypto, primarily in a positive sense. The prospect of the global economy (mainly the U.S.) reducing inflation without major recession, combined with the long-awaited ETF approval, will boost risk appetite among institutional and retail investors alike.
Overall, 2024’s price action and on-chain activity will resemble 2021. If 2021’s theme was L1s and the chase for “Ethereum killers,” 2024’s theme will be L2 rollups and modular blockchain solutions.
The hunt for airdrops will lead users to try new bridges, eventually resulting in a major bridge exploit. I expect many token pump-and-dump schemes, especially from newly launched rollup projects.
Since it’s an election year, crypto may become a partisan issue—Democrats opposing, Republicans supporting it. Ultimately, this will just be political signaling, with no serious crypto-specific legislation passed in 2024. However, we’ll see other regions advance through more productive dialogue and legislation. Another country will follow El Salvador’s lead and adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.
I’m most excited about crypto’s DePIN space and potential real-world applications of projects like Helium. Token prices will still drive adoption, requiring founders to be creative and strategic in tokenomics to ensure sustainability across crypto cycles.
Ian Devendorf
In 2024, driven by spot Bitcoin ETF approval in Q1 and the Bitcoin halving in Q2, BTC dominance will continue rising, peaking around 70% in the first half. If macro and liquidity conditions allow, BTC dominance will fade in the second half as altcoins outperform, particularly ETH scaling and L1s (e.g., Solana, Near, Aptos, Sui).
Lending protocols and stablecoins will continue benefiting from integrating real-world assets in a high-interest-rate environment. Enterprise stablecoin launches will continue in 2024, as using short-term Treasuries as collateral offers an attractive business model, though unique demand drivers are needed to gain meaningful market share. By market share, USDT will remain the dominant stablecoin, as its high liquidity and presence across markets will be hard to overcome.
Ethereum’s Cancun/Deneb upgrade will happen sometime in Q2 2024, leading to positive price action for Ethereum L2s like Optimism, Base, and Arbitrum as margins improve. Although Ethereum’s fee revenue from L2s will decline in 2024, total Ethereum fee revenue will be only slightly affected, as most revenue will continue coming directly from transactions on Ethereum. Rollups will continue facing persistent technical challenges in 2024, limiting their adoption and percentage of fee revenue contributed to Ethereum.
Afif Bandak
The U.S. will launch spot BTC ETFs, attracting $10 billion in inflows this year. The U.S. will also approve spot ETH ETFs in Q4. Discussion around modularity will intensify, sparking a rollup revival. EIP-4844 will deploy on mainnet; by year-end, blob data will account for 10–20% of ETH fees. In 2024, parallel EVM will become a popular narrative. LSDfi and staking will remain key DeFi narrative drivers.
Shamel Tejani
For crypto participants, 2024 will be more optimistic than 2023. It will be the largest year for crypto airdrops. The main driver of retail adoption won’t be spot Bitcoin ETF approval or price appreciation of major crypto assets, but FOMO sparked by airdrops. Major projects like zkSync, Starknet, Linea, LayerZero, and many in the Cosmos and Solana ecosystems will launch their tokens, many having already announced plans to do so before Q3. This will inject billions in liquidity into their ecosystems, allowing rotation into native memes and NFTs, creating a wealth effect. Speculation around Ethereum ETFs and the Dencun upgrade, combined with EigenLayer’s launch, will refocus attention on ETH, giving ETH/BTC some relief. DEX trading volume will increase relative to CEX. Bitcoin will drop 25% at some point in the first half of 2024.
Brad Kay
In 2024, Ethereum will continue leading in NFT trading volume, with Bitcoin and Solana following closely. A notable development on the Bitcoin network will be the successful launch of a decentralized exchange (DEX) for BRC20 tokens. This advancement, akin to Blur’s transformative impact on NFTs, will revolutionize BRC20 trading, improve price discovery, and significantly boost trading volume. Additionally, we’ll observe a continued decline in royalty income on the Ethereum network. This trend will be driven by competitive pressures among marketplaces struggling to enforce royalty agreements.
John Dantoni
2024 will mark a milestone year for digital assets, with pivotal moments reshaping the industry landscape and driving new growth. The long-anticipated approval of Bitcoin ETFs promises to inject new vitality into the sector, unleashing fresh liquidity.
Against this backdrop, two dominant investment paradigms—modular vs. integrated—will shape investment strategies. Ethereum, supported by modular protocols like Celestia, will lead the modular narrative. Meanwhile, Solana’s unwavering dominance in the integrated space will attract a wave of venture capital, positioning itself as Ethereum’s main competitor and securing substantial funding.
Emerging technologies like RWA, DePin, and SocialFi will compete for market share, with Solana’s ecosystem serving as an incubator for early-stage protocols gaining traction. Much of the VC funding in this space will flow toward such applications, reinforcing Solana’s role in shaping the future of digital assets.
In the Bitcoin ecosystem, 2024 will see a revival, with DeFi, memes, and NFTs flourishing internally. Solutions like Ordinals, Stacks, and BRC20 will act as catalysts. Discussions about curbing this evolving ecosystem may arise, but undeniable market forces and growing mining revenues will prevail, forcing even skeptics to accept the shifting narrative within Bitcoin’s ecosystem.
VC funding is expected to see significant growth in 2024, acting as a lagging but important indicator of rising digital asset market caps. In the first half, total VC funding will reach $6.5 billion, reflecting already realized price gains. As the fundraising market booms in the second half, monthly funding will surge to an average of $3 billion, reminiscent of the 2021/22 frenzy. By the end of 2024, total VC funding will reach $24.5 billion, with private funding up 130% year-on-year.
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