2023 was a wild rollercoaster ride for crypto. We explored all the nooks and crannies of the bear market. However, that’s behind us. It’s 2024 and time to look forward. What will be trending in this new year? What crypto trends should you pay attention to?
So, let’s take a closer look at the crypto trends for 2024. We loosely base this article on this Messari report. This will be a 4-part series.
Investment Trends
- Bitcoin
In the case of Bitcoin, it’s straightforward. BTC was and still is the top OG. It’s a long-term play for Bitcoin. It’s now more and more looked at as a store of value, like digital gold. Bitcoin still leads each charge. If the BTC price goes up, all other coins follow. It’s the same play in reverse.
Ethereum
Ethereum still has the first-mover advantage. The platform saw improvements in 2023. However, without faster and cheaper transactions, there are enough alternatives out there.
RWA
Real-World Assets will start making waves this year. The prediction is that by 2030 this will be a $10 trillion market. This makes sense since you can tokenize almost everything. Stocks, debts, real estate, and much more. This is where TradFi meets crypto. Keep an eye out for projects like Goldfinch or Centrifuge.
AI & Crypto
Crypto and AI seem to be a great match. You can use blockchain timestamps to catch deep fakes. Or you can determine whether pictures or text were AI-generated or not.
DePin
AI will need computing power and humans need storage. That’s where DePin (decentralized physical infrastructure) steps in. Protocols like Akash or Arweave fill this gap. Akash offers decentralized, unused computing power. Arweave offers decentralized storage.
DeSoc
The current DeSoc (decentralized social media) players are Farcaster and Lens. But there are plenty of other options available. For instance, platforms like Galxe, Intract, or Deso are starting to make an impact. The picture below shows where DePin, Storage and AI rank on Coingecko’s categories chart.
Source: CoinGecko
People to Watch in 2024
It’s almost more interesting to watch who was hot in 2023 and where they are now. So, SBF is in jail and convicted. Do Kwon (Terra), Su Zhu (3AC), and the founders of Tornado Cash are all in jail. They’re all waiting for their trials. CZ pleaded guilty and will hear his sentence in February. But let’s take a look at 2024.
Larry Fink of BlackRock and Cathie Wood of Ark Invest
Larry Fink because BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager. Cathie Wood because she was the first BTC spot ETF applicant with Ark Invest. At the latest, by the 10th of January, we will know more about these applications.
Senator Elizabeth Warren
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Senator Warren leads a gang of Democrat staffers who detest crypto. She wields lots of power and has influential allies everywhere. Among others,
- Gary Gensler, chair of the SEC.
- Martin Gruenberg, chair of the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). Chokepoint 2.0.
- Rohit Chopra, chair of the CFPB (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation).
Lucas Vogelsang
Lucas Vogelsang is the CEO and co-founder of Centrifuge. They are one of the leaders in the RWA space.
Vibhu
Vibhu is the founder and CEO of Drip Haus. Daily free art in the form of NFTs on Solana. A growing ecosystem of creators who get daily rewards from the users. See the picture below.
Source: Drip Haus
Products and Projects in 2024
Celestia (TIA)
Celestia currently ticks all the right boxes. It’s a modular chain, which means it doesn’t do all tasks, like a monolithic chain. It concentrates on one task and delegates other tasks. Celestia provides data availability and consensus to other modular chains. It doesn’t offer execution. This provides a platform that offers a faster and even cheaper basis for chains that build on Celestia. That’s compared to Ethereum-based rollups. It’s built on Cosmos. Celestia may have set the whole Cosmos ecosystem on fire.
Farcaster
Farcaster is the DeSoc app that may take over X, in case that goes down. Vitalik Buterin is a regular poster. They also offer thematic channels, which is a good break from X’s setup.
Liquid Staking
Liquid staking offers the most interesting and exciting growth options for DeFi. Lido is even so successful that its market share has grown too big to close to 33%. This could impact the chain’s decentralization. However, healthy competition is entering the playing field.
Drip Haus
The project is crossing borders with their RWA approach to art and NFTs. Vibhu, the founder, as mentioned earlier, came up with a fascinating idea to have daily free NFT art drops. After a humble Season 1, there was a successful S2, and now S3 is underway. S3 revolutionized the way creators get rewards from the Drip Haus users. 100% of the rewards go to the creators. There’s an ingenious system that filters out bots and spam accounts. The platform keeps breaking record after record. With a visionary founder and CEO at the helm.
Tokenizing all content is the most obvious huge idea in crypto that everyone missed because
a) the gen 1 model of NFTs made so many people so much money that every OG was stuck trying to recreate the high of ‘21 for 2 years
b) abundant NFTs with tiny or insignificant value is a…
— vibhu (@vibhu) January 5, 2024
Conclusion
This is Part-1 of our 4-part series on crypto trends in 2024. We covered investment trends, AI & crypto, and projects and products. So, there’s more to come soon.
Disclaimer
The information discussed by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. This is for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. Any information or strategies are thoughts and opinions relevant to accepted levels of risk tolerance of the writer/reviewers, and their risk tolerance may be different from yours.
We are not responsible for any losses that you may incur as a result of any investments directly or indirectly related to the information provided. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments, so please do your due diligence.
Copyright Altcoin Buzz Pte Ltd.
