Overview of the Public Chain Industry in November 2024

In November 2024, the blockchain industry welcomed a strong bull market. Bitcoin's price continued to set new historical highs, approaching the $100,000 mark, with its market cap surpassing that of silver and other major traditional assets. Ethereum also achieved a significant rebound, and the altcoin market performed impressively as well. While Bitcoin Layer 2 maintained robust growth, Ethereum Layer 2 faced more intense competition, resulting in relatively moderate growth.

Market Overview

The cryptocurrency market reached a historic high in November. Bitcoin surged from $69,386 to $96,427, an increase of 39.0%. Ethereum followed closely, rising from $2,511 to $3,711, a gain of 47.8%. Bitcoin's exceptional performance allowed it to surpass the market capitalization of silver and Saudi Aramco, positioning it firmly as the seventh largest global asset after nearing the $100,000 mark on November 23.

The results of the U.S. election have become an important catalyst for the growth of the cryptocurrency market, potentially influencing the future direction of cryptocurrency legislation and regulation. The market has responded positively to this, particularly reflected in the performance of popular sectors such as memecoins, decentralized AI projects, and decentralized science.

At the same time, broader financial markets also performed strongly. The financial sector led the stock market under expectations of U.S. tax reform and deregulation. However, international markets experienced some volatility, with the RMB under pressure due to concerns over potential tariffs from the U.S., while gold prices fell as election-related uncertainties eased.

Layer 1 Development

In November 2024, the total market capitalization of blockchain surged by 41.1% to $2.8 trillion. While Bitcoin maintained its dominance with a 68.1% share, this was a decrease from 70.1% in October, as altcoins performed well this month. Ethereum reversed its downward trend, reaching a market share of 15.9% (an absolute increase of 0.6%), while Solana surpassed the BNB chain with a share of 4.0%.

Against the backdrop of Bitcoin continuously setting price records, altcoins have shown outstanding performance. Stellar (XLM) leads with a surge of 466.8%, followed by Hedera (HBAR) with an increase of 269.7%, Cardano (ADA) rising by 201.5%, and Polkadot (DOT) gaining 130.7%. Notably, Stellar's surge significantly reflects the market's increasing attention to its cross-border remittance infrastructure and CBDC capabilities, which may be influenced by the anticipation of clearer regulatory frameworks following the U.S. elections.

The TVL in the DeFi space grew by 43.0% to $90.8 billion in November. Ethereum led the growth with a 61.6% increase, while Tron and Solana ranked second and third, respectively. Although most of the top 15 chains by TVL saw growth, Polygon declined by 5.9% due to capital outflows from a certain prediction market platform. The downtrend for TON has continued since October, attributed to the weakening momentum of a certain social platform's games and meme activities.

The Move technology stack blockchain maintains a strong momentum of development. Sui has reached new highs in token price and market capitalization, while establishing a strategic partnership with a well-known financial institution. Aptos is driving on-chain activity growth through its Meme launch platform. Meanwhile, Movement is about to launch its mainnet, with impressive testnet data: according to Movement Explorer, there are already over 6.6 million accounts and 153 million transactions.

Stablecoins remain one of the central segments on the stage. USDS, as the first major DeFi-native stablecoin, has launched on Solana, and reports suggest that a certain company is about to receive approval for RLUSD from the New York Department of Financial Services. As the influence of stablecoins continues to grow, the industry is paying attention to whether some companies will issue their own blockchains. The CEO of a stablecoin issuing company stated that their company will remain neutral and will not launch its own blockchain, addressing industry concerns.

Bitcoin Layer 2 and Sidechains

In November 2024, Bitcoin Layer 2 and sidechains achieved significant growth, with a total TVL reaching $2.4 billion, an increase of 34.6% compared to October. Competition among major platforms for Bitcoin liquidity intensified.

Core has strengthened its market leadership position, with a 55.7% increase in TVL to $890 million and an expansion of market share to 37.4%. This growth is attributed to the Fusion upgrade in November, which introduced dual staking and liquidity Bitcoin staking (LstBTC), allowing users to achieve higher yields while maintaining liquidity on Core's BTCfi platform.

Bitlayer maintains the second position with a TVL of $580 million, but its market share has dropped to 24.4%. BSquared continues to grow, with a monthly increase of 53.1% to a TVL of $260 million, rising to third place, while Rootstock holds fourth place with a TVL of $240 million.

At the project level of BTCfi, Pell Network has become a leader with a TVL of $400 million, followed by Avalon Finance (Bitlayer and Core) and DeSyn (Bitlayer) with strong performances across multiple chains, each having over $200 million in TVL.

Ethereum Layer 2

In November 2024, the total TVL (including the standard bridging part) of Ethereum Layer 2 solutions reached $27.5 billion, a 2.0% increase from October, continuing to lag behind the growth rate of Bitcoin scaling solutions.

Arbitrum One maintains its leading position with a TVL of $11.3 billion and a market share of 41.0%, while Base surpasses Optimism to take the second position with a TVL of $5.1 billion and a share of 18.6%. This is due to a surge in activity brought about by a social meme deployment platform and an AI agent creation and deployment platform based on a certain social media platform. Meanwhile, Optimism's market share has fallen to 17.3%.

Starknet's TVL increased by 5.1%, surpassing Blast to rank fourth, while Blast continued to decline, falling by 14.5%. Starknet's growth is attributed to the STRK staking launched on November 26 and the CEO's commitment to significantly improve performance in the next quarter. At the same time, World Chain performed excellently, with a TVL growth of 131.4% to $570 million.

In November, under public opinion pressure, the Ethereum Foundation strengthened its financial transparency by releasing the 2024 report, while outlining its core values and funding strategies. One of the Ethereum founders emphasized the future development of Ethereum, including the implementation of DAS to enhance Layer 2 scalability, and infrastructure improvements to support a diverse range of applications from ENS to consumer payments.

Blockchain Game Public Chain

In November, the number of active blockchain games increased by 4.6% to 1,696, with BNB Chain, Polygon, and Ethereum maintaining market leadership in game distribution, holding shares of 20.9%, 15.4%, and 13.4%, respectively.

The user engagement landscape is undergoing new changes, with opBNB, Ronin, and Nebula (SKALE) leading with an average daily active users (DAU) of 1.8 million, 900,000, and 400,000 respectively. OpBNB's DAU increased by 46.1%, thanks to the promotion of SERAPH: In The Darkness and MEET48, as well as the migration of some games from the BNB chain to opBNB. At the same time, Ronin is showing a strong recovery, driven by the launch of the new game Fableborne and the resurgence of Lumiterra.

The games based on a certain social platform have shown mixed results. Although the TON ecosystem is facing challenges, with DAU down 41.9% to 116,400, Sui has gone against the trend, with DAU up 23.1% to 233,300, mainly thanks to the success of BIRDS and significant user retention metrics.

Financing Situation

In November 2024, the blockchain sector recorded 12 financing events, with a total amount of $79.8 million, a decrease of 23.3% compared to October, marking the lowest monthly figure since August. Five of these events did not disclose specific financing amounts.

Zero Gravity Labs (0G Labs) has become the largest recipient of financing this month, announcing a $40 million seed round funding along with a $250 million commitment for token purchases. The company has shifted its positioning from being a modular blockchain provider to that of a crypto AI startup, developing a decentralized AI operating system (dAIOS) for building AI applications on-chain.

Several Layer 1 blockchains secured funding this month, including Cytonic, Pharos, Talus Network, EtraPay, and Datalayer. Notably, a custody blockchain service provider built by a certain company has acquired EtraPay, gaining a team comprised of renowned privacy technology experts and the innovative encrypted token standard Encrypted ERC (eERC).

The Layer 2 ecosystem continues to maintain a high level of investment activity, with six projects receiving a new round of financing, including Bitcoin Layer 2 projects Bitfinity and Lnfi Network, Ethereum Layer 2 projects Heurist and Corn, as well as other Layer 2 projects Akave and AgentLayer.