We are living in the early days of 2024. Right now when we look back, we had a truly great year 2023 with the return of growth of the entire market with strong momentum coming from Bitcoin ETF Spot and explosive trends like LSDfi, AI, Layer 2, Airdrop/Retroactive, Telegram Bot, GameFi,…
If 2024 will continue to be a great year in the context of this being the year of transition to the next cycle of the market when the Bitcoin Halving event will take place in April 2024, if that is really the case, we will What can we expect from the Crypto market? In this article, I will share my 5 expectations about the Crypto market in 2024.
My 5 Expectations About the Crypto Market in 2024
The NFT wave will rise on Avalanche
It can be said that there have been many ecosystems that once had a booming NFT market but then gradually drifted into oblivion like Polygon or Flow. But there are also ecosystems where the NFT market continues to grow strongly today, such as the stories of Ethereum, Solana and most recently Bitcoin, Sei Network, Aptos. NFTs are one of the important pieces of any ecosystem in acting as a magnet to attract new users.
Besides, finding quality projects to invest in NFTs on old ecosystems like Ethereum or Solana will be a relatively difficult story. Obviously, as an investor who accepts many risks, we must commit to exploring new lands. However, discovery does not mean that we participate in NFTs in every ecosystem, but we need to find points that show that the ecosystem can explode in NFTs in the near future. Some conditions are:
- The ecosystem had to prove its capabilities.
- That ecosystem must make moves aimed directly at building an NFT market.
- There are starting to be some quality NFT and quality Builder collections.
- Users are starting to notice the NFT market on that ecosystem.
The answer is Avalanche. First in terms of capacity, in the past, although it was not noisy and did not have billions of dollars in incentive packages, DeFi on Avalanche exploded and became one of Solana’s biggest competitors at the same time. Not only stopping there in the context of 2022 – 2023 when focusing on the Web3 Games segment, Avalanche has also had many achievements such as the game Sharpnel attracting a large number of users to participate or collaborating with famous Web2 Game Studios such as SKT, TSM,…
Next, regarding the development of the NFT market, the Avalanche development team has created a separate channel just for NFTs, which is Avalanche Arts & Culture with its own director. With this move, it is clear that Avalanche also wants to build a strong NFT market in the future to keep up with Ethereum or Solana.
There have been some of the first quality NFT Builders and collections on the Avalanche ecosystem such as Dokyo, Dokkaebi or Akudo World. There were times when Dokyo’s trading volume was the highest in the entire NFT market, which is a sign for us to pay attention. However, because the NFT market on Avalanche is still in its infancy, there are many risks.
Besides Avalanche, there are some names that people need to pay attention to such as:
- Sei: Sei is a new ecosystem that was recently born. The NFT market on Sei is quite vibrant with some sets having profits up to dozens of times, thereby attracting people to participate. However, the NFT collections on Sei are based on NFT sets on Ethereum and modified, without special products.
- Sui Network: Sui himself is also trying to build NFT, GameFi and DeFi side by side through the Bullshark Quest programs. Sui Network also has its own NFT collection, Sui Frens, this shows that Sui also wants to develop the NFT industry, but Sui’s builders in this industry are not too many.
Mantle’s outbreak and the Layer 2s build methodically
2022 is the year of Optimism, 2023 is the year of Arbitrum, so in 2024, which Layer 2 will sit and win the spotlight from Optimism and Arbitrum will most likely be Starknet or zkSync but clearly in its role as an investor. then the valuations of Starknet and zkSync will be extremely high upon launch. At the present time, if compared in 2021, Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync or Starknet will have many similarities with Solana, Ethereum, Avalanche or Polygon, so clearly the opportunity then belongs to Fantom, Near Protocol, Polkadot, … Obviously, we need to find Layer 2 names similar to Fantom, Near Protocol, Polkadot, etc.
One of the things I should pay the most attention to at the present time is Mantle Network. Some of the reasons I chose Mantle to be on my watch list include:
- Mantle has huge financial resources received from bitDAO. Obviously, to build a strong ecosystem, the important things are people and finance. It seems that Mantle meets both of these conditions.
- Mantle spent a large amount of money to buy Trader Joe’s copyright on his network, Merchant Moe. This is one of the actions that clearly shows Mantle’s ambition when Trader Joe is one of the most innovative AMMs in the Crypto market.
- Mantle also builds an experience for users when they enter the world of Mantle, they will have a representative NFT through experiencing the ecosystem to upgrade their NFT.
I really look forward to the rise of the next generation Layer 2 platforms in the same way that Layer 1 platforms in the most recent cycle have exploded.
Besides Mantle, there are a number of Layer 2s that I am also hoping will explode in their own way, including:
- Linea: Is a Layer 2 Blockchain using zkRollup technology built by Consensys but there are no differences compared to the general level.
- Base: Is a Layer 2 Blockchain using Optimism’s Optimistic Rollup technology built by Coinbase. Base has quite an impressive pitch with Friend.tech and the SocialFi ecosystem and projects.
- Frame: As a Layer 2 Blockchain using Arbitrum’s Optimistic Rollup technology, Frame is built to realize the vision for an infrastructure platform for NFT and GameFi projects.
- Blast & unique Layer 2s: Some Layer 2 models create their own advantages such as Blast, Manta choosing passive income.
- Specific App-chain: Some Protocols are also transforming themselves into a Layer to customize to suit personal and user needs, which is also very noteworthy.
Restaking & its variations
In the article about EigenLayer’s Restaking ecosystem, I mentioned and explained in detail two trends that are being included in Restaking, including Liquid Restaking and Liquid Native Restaking. The biggest driving force for this trend to explode is the official launch of EigenLayer, bringing ETH staking profits and ETH LSTs up to tens of percent.
It doesn’t stop there, there are signs that investment funds are also actively investing in this segment, as evidenced by:
- Renzo Protocol successfully raised $3.2M led by Maven 11 Capital with the participation of Figment Capital, IOSG Capital, OKX Ventures, SevenX Ventures,…
- Rio Network has received investment from many large funds such as Polychain, Coinbase Ventures, HackVC, Hakss3, Haskey Capital,…
- Puffer Finance successfully called for $5.5M with the participation of Lemniscap, Faction, LBank Labs, SNZ Capital,… besides a number of prominent Angel Investors such as Sreeram Kannan, Calvin Liu from EigenLayer, Frederick Allen from Coinbase, Mr Block from Curve Finance,…
However, the opportunities for investors for themselves and others are not really many as most Liquid Restaking and Liquid Native Restaking projects have not yet launched tokens, so the brightest opportunity at the present time is is doing Airdrop/Retroactive, doing airdrop for these projects means killing two birds with one stone as EigenLayer will also receive Airdrop.
However, if we look deeply at the problem, we see that if Restaking explodes, there will be opportunities for ETH, LSD and LSDfi industry projects will have a chance to grow. Because to participate in Restaking, users are required to buy ETH and participate in LSD platforms. With the increasing number of LSTs, LSDfi still has a lot of room to develop.
Airdrop/Retroactive will continue to explode
It can be said that this is the golden time for projects to launch tokens because usually projects will lock for 1 year for investment funds and the development team. So if the market continues to follow the trend for many years, there is a high possibility that in 2025 the market will have a strong Bull run and if projects launch tokens in 2024, then by 2025, both investment funds and The entire development team will begin to receive tokens in an extremely beautiful market context.
If it is an advantage for the funds and development team, this is also the time for projects besides launching tokens that will be Airdrop/Retroactive to users who have supported them from the first days, Of course, retail investors like you and I will benefit directly.
If Airdrop/Retroactive continues to explode, the market will still have a certain amount of money flowing back and forth between many different Blockchains, from which we will also have smaller opportunities. Currently, some of the areas that users are interested in about Airdrop are Infastructure, Layer 1, Layer 2 and DeFi.
Narratives around Bitcoin
Inscriptions are certainly no longer a strange concept to people in the Crypto market. The wave of Inscriptions has spread across different ecosystems, wherever Inscriptions has set foot, it has created unpleasant impressions on users such as transaction fees being pushed up too high or the network being congested and collapsing, leading to can not access.
However, things did not stop there, Narratives on Bitcoin began to be formed and developed, including:
- Metaverse: Similar to Metaverse on Ethereum and many other Blockchains, so is Metaverse on Bitcoin. However, old wine in new bottles still attracts users to participate. Some prominent projects are Bitcoin Cats or bitLand.
- Bitcoin Layer 2: The crazy growth of Map Protocol also makes the market pay attention to Bitcoin Layer 2. In terms of layout and technology, it almost copies ideas from the Ethereum model and its Layer 2s. Some outstanding projects include Rootstock, Stack, Babylon, Map Protocol,…
The more Narratives on Bitcoin explode, the people who benefit the most are not investors but miners. So Narratives on Bitcoin including Inscriptions, Layer 2, NFT or Metaverse all represent the interests of miners. It is highly likely that miners are teaming up to create trends on the Bitcoin network and thereby make profits like Ethereum miners have done in the past.
Summary
Above are my 5 expectations about the Crypto market in 2024 including Airdrop/Retroactive, stories surrounding the Bitcoin network, the rise of potential Layer 2 or the NFT puzzle on Avalanche will explode. Hopefully through this article, everyone will have a more subjective perspective on their 5 expectations about the Crypto market in 2024.
