2024 Crypto Market Outlook: Top 20 Trend Predictions

This article is purely personal speculation, intended for entertainment purposes only and does not constitute any investment advice.

1. L2 technology will continue to lead industry development. With the implementation of the Ethereum dencun upgrade, the significant reduction in L2 fees will drive ecological explosion, covering multiple areas such as gaming, perpetual contracts, DeFi, NFTs, social, and DePIN.

2. Mainstream L2 projects will comprehensively challenge other public chains. After the implementation of EIP-4844 and the evolution of data availability layers, L2 will be on par with high-performance public chains in terms of fees and speed. Among them, the ecological competition between Arbitrum and Solana will become the focus.

3. zkSync is expected to launch its economic model this year, becoming an important force in promoting L2 development.

4. If Starknet makes breakthroughs, it may trigger a boom in the entire blockchain gaming industry.

5. It is expected that an L2 project will have a diluted total market value exceeding 100 billion USD, potentially reaching 300 billion USD in an optimistic scenario. However, the landscape of the L2 market is still difficult to determine by 2024.

6. The Bitcoin ecosystem is ushering in new opportunities after inscriptions, with multiple teams exploring technologies such as decentralized indexing, the evolution of the inscription system, cross-chain, zero-knowledge proofs, and L2. These advancements will promote the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem itself and accelerate its integration with the Ethereum ecosystem.

7. Ethereum L1 is gradually transforming into a B2B chain, while ordinary users mainly interact on L2/L3 and a few high-performance L1s. Ethereum will become the underlying asset and an important settlement layer in the encryption field, but the execution layer and part of the data availability layer will be outsourced. In the long term, ETH will still benefit from the overall ecosystem growth.

8. Modular blockchain remains an important trend, especially with intense competition in the data availability layer. The Ethereum staking sector will also venture into the data availability layer. The Cosmos ecosystem and the Ethereum ecosystem have both competition and integration.

9. In addition to Ethereum and Bitcoin, the Cosmos and Solana ecosystems will continue to develop. Cosmos is making progress through modularity, while Solana is achieving breakthroughs through applications. As modular blockchain matures, Solana may become more deeply involved in a broader crypto market.

10. Web3 games are expected to achieve breakthroughs on L2/L3 (such as Arbitrum, Starknet), with the emergence of games that have over a million users. Game chains based on Arbitrum may become the forefront of Web3 game development.

11. Blur may expand its business to involve NFT perpetual contracts, L2, and the NFT market of the Bitcoin and Solana ecosystems, and is expected to continue being an important disruptor in the industry.

12. In addition to the explosion of L2 projects in the Ethereum ecosystem, a significant deflation is also expected, leading to value capture. This will incentivize more users to stake/re-stake, further locking up the circulating ETH.

13. Perpetual contract trading in DeFi may see massive growth in 2024, with major platform trading volumes expected to exceed 5 times that of 2023. Although it may not be the main narrative in a bull market, it is likely one of the best fundamental tracks.

14. Modular blockchain and cross-chain technological advancements will promote the integration of Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana ecosystems, and may give rise to many currently unknown projects.

15. DePIN may achieve breakthroughs on Solana and Arbitrum, but overall it is still in the early stages, and more exploratory projects will emerge.

16. Although AI is still some distance from practical implementation, it will remain one of the important narratives in 2024. AI protocols based on L2 and high-performance public chains will also gradually emerge.

17. The Ethereum re-staking track may become an important trend at some point this year.

18. The NFT, MEME, and inscription markets are expected to recover, driving up trading volumes on NFT exchanges and laying the foundation for the launch of NFT perpetual contracts.

19. Some celebrities may enter the NFT, MEME, and inscription fields.

20. With the development of L2 and the exploration of high-frequency applications, smart contract wallets are expected to start emerging in 2024.

Risk Warning: The above analysis is based solely on personal observations of technology and the market, and does not represent an accurate prediction. Please maintain independent judgment and carry out risk management.