Analysis of the Narrative Themes in the 2024 Crypto Assets Market: AI and Meme Coins Lead the Rise

The cryptocurrency market in 2024 presents a diversified development trend, with significant performance differences among various narrative themes. Based on market data from a certain data platform, this study conducts an in-depth analysis of the main narrative themes in the cryptocurrency market from January 1 to December 29, 2024. By tracking the performance of the top ten tokens in each theme, the average return relative to the beginning of the year (or the first trading day) was calculated. The results show that there are huge differences in annual returns among different narrative themes, with a range spanning from -20.7% to +2,939.8%.

AI and Meme coins perform excellently

In 2024, the AI sector and Meme coin sector became the stars of the Crypto Assets market, achieving annual average rises of 2,939.8% and 2,185.1%, far exceeding other popular narrative themes.

The Meme coin sector started to significantly lead in March, with a monthly return skyrocketing from 96.6% to 1,713.1%. Despite the extreme volatility, Meme coins maintained the highest returns for most of 2024. However, after reaching a historical high return of 3,211.4% on December 9, the sector experienced a pullback as market interest waned.

In contrast, the AI sector saw a strong rebound at the end of the year, with the return in December nearly doubling from 1,598.1% to 2,939.8%. This was primarily due to the explosive growth of a certain AI agency platform, which also became the token with the largest increase in the crypto assets market this year. Ultimately, the AI sector surpassed Meme coins by the end of December to become the annual return champion.

The real-world assets ( RWA ) sector ranks third with an annual average return of 819.5%. This sector performed steadily at the beginning of the year, with a return of 365.3% by April 12, and then consolidated sideways over the next six months. In November, driven by the rise in the price of a certain token, the RWA sector restarted its upward trend.

Layer 1, DePIN and DeFi sectors performed mediocrely

Layer 1, decentralized physical infrastructure ( DePIN ) and decentralized finance ( DeFi ) sectors performed similarly in 2024, recording returns of 142.5%, 135.4%, and 101.4% respectively. This means that Layer 1 and DePIN slightly outperformed Bitcoin's corresponding 125.5% rise, while the performance of the DeFi sector was even worse than Bitcoin.

In other words, conservative investors holding Bitcoin can achieve returns comparable to at least three major narrative themes.

The performance of the gaming and Layer 2 sectors is poor.

GameFi and Layer 2 have become the worst-performing sectors in 2024, even worse than Ethereum's 49.0% rise. Specifically, the GameFi sector has only risen by 14.7% this year, with six of the top ten gaming tokens experiencing declines ranging from 3.1% to 32.9%.

Layer 2 is the only sector this year that recorded negative returns, down 20.7%. With projects increasingly seeking to launch their own Layer 2 solutions, seven of the top ten Layer 2 coins saw their prices decline, with decreases ranging from 6.3% to 75.3%.

2024 Crypto Assets Narrative Performance Ranking

The ranking of the average annual price return rates of the top 10 tokens by narrative theme is as follows:

1. AI: 2939.8%
2. Meme coin: 2185.1%
3. RWA: 819.5%
4. Layer 1: 142.5%
5. DePIN: 135.4%
6. DeFi: 101.4%
7. Privacy: 74.5%
8. Exchange Token: 60.5%
9. GameFi: 14.7%
10. Layer 2: -20.7%

This ranking reflects the overall landscape of the Crypto Assets market in 2024, with the strong performance of AI and Meme coins and the unexpectedly low performance of Layer 2 being the focus of the market. Analyzing this data not only helps to review the market trends of the past year but also provides valuable references for investors and market participants to better understand and grasp the development trends of the future Crypto Assets market.