The year in data: 5 charts that show how crypto changed in 2024

Following a 2023 bear market recovery for the crypto industry, 2024 produced another largely positive year, with bitcoin reaching new all-time highs and many metrics continuing to improve.

From the U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds’ remarkable first year to a record supply of stablecoins, a DeFi resurgence, the rise and fall of SocialFi and U.S. election-fueled Polymarket betting, here are five charts to show how the industry changed in 2024. 

US spot Bitcoin ETFs’ remarkable first year

On Jan. 11, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved proposals for 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs on an accelerated basis. ETFs from Ark Invest/21Shares, Bitwise, BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, Invesco, Valkyrie (now CoinShares), VanEck and WisdomTree began trading the next day. An additional spot ETF from Hashdex and Grayscale’s mini Bitcoin ETF launched in March and July, respectively.

The combined funds have since gone on to establish the most successful ETF launch in history by many measures, competing against some of the largest and most established ETF products in the world, including the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) and the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) Nasdaq-100 Index. They have attracted more than $35 billion in total net inflows , with around $103 billion in assets under management amid bitcoin’s substantial price rise this year from around $42,000 on Jan. 1 toward the $100,000 level.

BlackRock’s IBIT spot Bitcoin ETF has dominated most metrics, accounting for more than $37 billion in net inflows alone and having only recorded 10 negative days all year. Alongside Bitcoin’s price rise, IBIT has grown to $52 billion in AUM and represents a  market share of around 70% among the ETFs by trading volume.

However, launched in July, the U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs haven’t fared as well so far, generating around $2.6 billion in net inflows overall.

Stablecoin supply hits new heights

The circulating supply of U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins across issuers and blockchains recovered to reach new heights of more than $200 billion in 2024 — breaching the last peak in April 2022 before the bear market collapse of crypto firms and ecosystems like Terra, Celsius and FTX.

Stablecoins have undoubtedly found product market fit, generating more than $5.1 trillion worth of global transactions in the first half of this year alone, according to analysts at crypto asset manager Bitwise. That’s comparable to Visa’s $6.5 trillion over the same period, with a further $3.1 trillion generated by stablecoin transactions in the third quarter. “We always say that crypto is on the brink of finding its killer use case. Well, here it is,” the analysts wrote in an October report.

Major corporations like PayPal have now launched their own stablecoins, with Ripple , Revolut, and Robinhood also looking to get in on the act. The technology is being discussed at the highest levels of government, stablecoins are now the 18th largest holder of U.S Treasuries alongside large sovereigns and payments giant Stripe recently confirmed its $1.1 billion acquisition of the stablecoin API firm Bridge — the largest in crypto history. The Stripe deal alone validates the usage and growth of stablecoins as a legitimate use case for public blockchains, according to analysts at research and brokerage firm Bernstein.

Tether continues to dominate the U.S. dollar-denominated market, with USDT accounting for approximately $140 billion or around 66% of the total stablecoin supply. Circle’s USDC is second with over $43 billion or 20% of the supply and Ethena’s USDe is third with around $6 billion or 3% of the market.

In terms of blockchain support, Ethereum leads USDT supply , closely followed by Tron. Ethereum also leads the supply of USDC , with Solana, Arbitrum and Base a distant second, third and fourth, respectively.

“Of all the metrics the crypto industry uses to measure adoption (e.g. the number of active addresses, network transactions, TVLs, etc.), stablecoin supply is arguably the most relevant yet often under-discussed,” analysts at Presto said in November. “While stablecoins have undeniably emerged as the blockchain’s killer app with tangible real-world relevance, their current supply represents just 0.9% of the total USD money supply, implying we are only scratching the surface.”

Solana leads a DeFi fee resurgence

DeFi fees also witnessed a resurgence toward the end of 2024, soaring to a peak of more than $53 million per day and $881 million per month in November, then $55 million per day and a record $893 million in December.

The Solana ecosystem was the primary beneficiary, with monthly decentralized exchange volumes also surpassing the $100 billion milestone in November — double that of Ethereum mainnet's $55 billion — as SOL made a new all-time high above $263 for the first time since 2021, before correcting.

The monthly fees generated by Solana-based platforms Raydium, Jito and Pump.fun all hit record highs in November, surpassing $211 million, $199 million and $93 million, respectively, amid soaring active addresses on the blockchain. That month, Uniswap accounted for Ethereum’s largest DeFi fees, generating around $97 million, jumping to more than $152 million in December.

The Block’s Research Director Eden Au attributed the surge in activity to the memecoin frenzy coupled with Solana’s low transaction fee and user-friendliness, adding that the network will likely continue to attract more retail users in the coming year.

“As we likely enter a bull market in 2025, retail speculators who seek higher returns will flock to the memecoin space as liquidity trickles down from the major cryptocurrency market,” Au said.

The rise and fall of SocialFi

SocialFi, a portmanteau of 'social' and 'finance,' fuses social media with blockchain technology. It aims to reward users for posting high-quality content online and give them more autonomy over how their data is used. 

The once buzzy Paradigm-backed friend.tech platform, which exceeded the daily earnings of Ethereum at one point, failed to repeat the surge in activity it generated in 2023, with transactions falling off a cliff this year. 

Friend.tech operates on the Coinbase-incubated Layer 2 chain Base , using “keys” to represent tokenized versions of users' profiles, tied to their X accounts. Owning a user key on friend.tech offers access to that user's content and the ability to message them.

The platform rekindled a brief burst of activity in May before the price of its token dropped 20% after co-founder Racer hinted at leaving Base. Transactions all but died off amid the fallout before the team ultimately gave up on the project and renounced control of its smart contracts following stagnant growth in September. While the platform could theoretically continue to function, the revocation made implementing new features impossible, outside of forking the protocol to create something new.

Decentralized social protocol Farcaster, co-founded by former Coinbase executives Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan, fared better this year, surging to an all-time high of 75,000 daily active users in May amid the success of features like embedded Frames , effectively turning posts into interactive mini-apps, and attracting some of the Ethereum community’s biggest names. However, it too has witnessed a substantial decline, with activity on the platform down around 70% from its May peak.

Polymarket betting soaring ahead of the U.S. election

Polygon-based decentralized predictions platform Polymarket had one of the most successful years in the crypto industry, with USDC-denominated bets soaring ahead of the U.S. election in November as international traders flocked to place their bets on the presidential winner. (U.S. residents are theoretically restricted from using the platform but could potentially circumvent the geoblock using VPNs).

After steadily gaining traction throughout 2024, Polymarket monthly trading volumes surged to a combined $5 billion in October and November as the contest between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris reached its climax.

While the platform offered numerous markets related to the U.S. election, including individual swing state battles and which party would take overall control of the House and the Senate, the winner of the presidential race was by far the most popular, accounting for more than $3 billion worth of trading volume alone coming into Election Day.

Monthly active traders on the platform mirrored the volume spike, reaching an all-time high of over 300,000 in November but continued to rise to more than 346,000 in December.

Polymarket open interest also reached a record $569 million on Nov. 6, $287 million just on the presidential outcome, before dropping back to the $200 million to $300 million range as activity slowed post-election.