In October 2024, Bitcoin saw a significant increase of 15.9%, leading the market while other cryptocurrencies experienced relatively modest gains. Bitcoin performed exceptionally well, rising from $60,764 to $70,398, with a 15.9% increase, reaching a recent high of $72,751 on October 29, close to its all-time high in March. In comparison, Ethereum showed a more subdued trend, with a monthly increase of 2.7%, closing at $2,519.
The market growth was primarily driven by the strong performance of mature tokens, with Bitcoin leading the way, followed by Bitcoin Cash (12.9%) and Litecoin (9.5%) also showing significant gains. Solana maintained its position as one of the top-performing altcoins, rising by 17.6%. Meanwhile, the emerging blockchain Sui continued its upward trajectory, with an increase of 11.5%.
Sui’s market capitalization rose to 11th place. By capitalizing on meme coin trends and Telegram-based gaming opportunities, Sui significantly expanded its DeFi ecosystem. In October, Circle launched its native USDC on Sui, marking another milestone in its development. However, this growth was not without controversy—accusations of “Sui insiders selling $400 million in tokens” in October sparked community discussions, despite being denied by the Sui Foundation.
In the DeFi space, October faced resistance, with the total value locked (TVL) decreasing by 6.8% to $63.5 billion. While the Bitcoin ecosystem performed strongly, the DeFi sector of the Ethereum ecosystem underperformed. Notably, Polygon was an exception, with its TVL growing by 30.3%, mainly driven by increased activity due to the upcoming US presidential election, which intensified and led to a record-breaking performance by Polymarket.
Stablecoins continued to demonstrate their critical role in the crypto ecosystem. Bitwise Research’s review of the crypto market in the third quarter of 2024 showed that global stablecoin trading volume exceeded $5.1 trillion in the first half of the year, approaching Visa’s $6.5 trillion transaction volume. Tether’s profitability surpassing BlackRock highlights the financial influence of stablecoins in the industry, intensifying the competition among public chains to onboard stablecoins.
In October 2024, Bitcoin Layer 2 and sidechains continued to experience strong growth, with a total TVL reaching $1.8 billion, a 22.2% increase from September.
Core maintained its industry-leading position, with a TVL growth of 29.8% to $570 million, capturing a 32.4% market share. Bitlayer solidified its position, with a TVL growth of 36.1% to $530 million, claiming a 29.9% market share. Rootstock ranked third with a TVL of $180 million and a 10.1% market share, while BSquared emerged as a rising star, with a TVL of $170 million, a 54.4% monthly growth, surpassing Merlin to rise to fourth place.
October witnessed significant technological breakthroughs in the Bitcoin Layer 2 ecosystem. BEVM introduced the innovative “Super Bitcoin” framework, proposing a comprehensive solution to expand its functionality while maintaining Bitcoin’s fundamental security.
In a crucial move to connect the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems, BOB Network announced its integration with Optimism’s “Superchain.” As a self-proclaimed “hybrid layer-2” solution, BOB aims to establish seamless connectivity between Bitcoin and Ethereum, placing Bitcoin at the center of the DeFi space.
Cross-chain functionality made further advancements with the integration of Cardano and BitcoinOS (BOS). This collaboration aims to provide direct, trustless Bitcoin liquidity access for Cardano users.
Additionally, BTCFi continued its impressive growth momentum, especially with Babylon’s Bitcoin staking program Cap-2. The program demonstrated remarkable efficiency, attracting 23,000 Bitcoins while generating only 1.56 BTC in minimal fees. This successful deployment underscores the market’s strong demand for Bitcoin-based financial products.
In October 2024, Ethereum Layer 2 solutions achieved moderate growth, with a total TVL of $19.8 billion, a 1.2% increase from September, significantly lagging behind the growth rate of Bitcoin’s scalability solutions. The competitive landscape continued to evolve, with established leaders maintaining their dominance but losing market share, while newcomers showed promising developments.
Market leaders Arbitrum One and Optimism maintained their positions with 45.3% and 17.8% market shares, respectively, despite minor declines. Base experienced significant growth, expanding its market share from 8.1% to 13.4%, with a 28.5% TVL increase. This growth was primarily attributed to Coinbase’s smart wallet, which simplified dApp interactions and attracted significant funds in lending, derivatives, and DEX protocols. Base’s native DEX Aerodrome performed exceptionally well in this expansion.
Several newcomers made a significant impact. Fuel Ignition and World Chain saw significant TVL growth post-mainnet launch, while Taiko’s TVL grew by 20.8% following the success of Panko Finance and Avalon Finance.
However, Scroll experienced a 39.6% TVL decrease post-airdrop. Its airdrop activity faced community controversy due to allocation issues, similar to previous cases like zkSync and Starknet, resulting in a significant drop in activity post-airdrop and a token price decline of over 50%.
Apart from market indicators, the industry focused on addressing fundamental challenges in the ecosystem, especially in user experience and interoperability.
Vitalik Buterin actively engaged in addressing community concerns, releasing a series of comprehensive articles discussing the future direction of Ethereum. He posted multiple articles on social media, emphasizing cross-Layer 2 interoperability as a key priority for development.
His submitted roadmap outlined improvements to unify the Ethereum ecosystem through standardizing chain-specific addresses, a unified payment request system, and cross-Layer 2 integrated key storage wallets. These enhancements aim to simplify cross-chain asset transfers while reducing gas fees for cross-Layer 2 transactions.
Despite ongoing challenges, Ethereum’s Layer 2 ecosystem continued to attract significant projects and developments. October witnessed several notable mainnet launches. World Network (formerly Worldcoin) went live, bringing its privacy-focused identity solution to the mainnet.
Yuga Labs’ ApeChain launched, leveraging Ethereum’s security to develop NFT applications, while Eclipse and Fuel Ignition completed mainnet deployments, introducing new scalability solutions to the ecosystem.
Another significant development came from Uniswap Labs, which announced the Unichain project, a new Layer 2 network built on Optimism’s OP Stack. Given Uniswap’s dominant position in the DeFi space, this announcement sparked extensive industry discussions.
Following major participants like Coinbase’s Base and Sony’s Soniem, the testnet launch of Unichain hinted at a potential shift in the dynamics of Layer 2 competition, intensifying competition in liquidity and gas fees in the future.
In October 2024, the blockchain gaming sector recorded 1,606 active games, with BNB Chain, Polygon, and Ethereum leading game distribution. OpBNB led user engagement with an average of 1.2 million daily active users (DAU), followed by Ronin (886,000 DAU) and Matchain (548,000 DAU).
Matchain made significant strides in October, with its Telegram-based game increasing from 78 average DAU in September to 548,000 DAU. The chain reached a peak of 3.3 million users on October 12, stabilizing at around 615,000 users by the end of the month, showcasing the potential and volatility of user acquisition strategies based on Telegram.
Sui and Core demonstrated strong growth, with DAUs increasing by 105.1% to 190,000 and 75.7% to 109,000, respectively, leveraging Telegram-based initiatives. Meanwhile, TON’s DAU decreased by 27.7% to 195,000, despite its pioneering Telegram-based strategy inspiring adoption by multiple chains, including Sei, Ancient8, and Viction, user retention remains a common challenge in the industry.
In October 2024, the blockchain sector saw 12 fundraising events totaling $104 million, a 40.1% decrease from September’s $174 million. Three events did not disclose specific fundraising amounts.
Privacy-focused blockchain project Nillion emerged as the top funding recipient in October, raising $25 million in a round led by Hack VC. The project’s innovative “blind computing” method allows data processing without exposing content, enabling applications to collaborate while maintaining data privacy.
This groundbreaking technology positions Nillion at the intersection of privacy protection and decentralized computing, meeting the increasing demand for secure data processing in Web3 applications.
Following a $30 million investment from Bitget and Foresight Ventures in September, TON continued its fundraising momentum. In October, TON received funding support from Gate.io.
Layer 2 solutions continued to attract investor attention across the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems. Bitcoin Layer 2 platforms Bitlayer and B2 Network successfully completed new fundraising rounds, while the Ethereum Layer 2 space saw funds flowing into innovative projects like Ithaca, Semantic Layer, Sophon, and LAYER.