The second quarter of 2024 in the crypto world was dominated by meme coins, Real World Assets (RWA), and Artificial Intelligence (AI), maintaining a strong market presence at 35.7%, similar to the first quarter.
Solana and Base were standout ecosystems, capturing 22.9% of market interest. Despite a promising start, the overall crypto market cap fell by 14.4%, closing June at $2.43 trillion.
Bitcoin faced a challenging Q2, ending at $62,734, down 11.9%. The much-anticipated fourth halving event passed without major market impact, and Bitcoin’s price fluctuated between $58,000 and $72,000.
The mining hash rate dropped by 18.8% after peaking in April, marking the first decline since Q2 2022.
Despite this, companies like BitDigital and Tether continued to invest in mining and AI, while Block completed its advanced mining chip development.
The spotlight in Q2 was on meme coins, RWAs, and AI, with meme coins alone accounting for 14.3% of the market. Solana and Base remained leading blockchain ecosystems.
Ethereum became inflationary, adding more ETH to circulation than it burned, primarily due to decreased network activity and lower gas fees.
[reaedmore id=”133348″]Centralized exchanges (CEXs) had a tough quarter, with spot trading volume dropping to $3.40 trillion, a 12.2% decrease from Q1. Binance held its top position, but Bybit rose to become the second-largest spot CEX.
Gate saw significant growth, increasing trading volume by 51.1%. In contrast, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) saw a 15.7% rise in trading volume, reaching $370.7 billion. Uniswap dominated the DEX market, while Thruster and Aerodrome experienced substantial growth, driven by the popularity of meme coins and airdrops.
Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered crypto custody bank, is urging its institutional clients to move away from major stablecoins like USDC, Agora USD (AUSD), and Usual USD (USD0), recommending instead a shift to the Global Dollar (USDG) — a stablecoin issued by Paxos and backed by a consortium that includes Anchorage itself.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has voiced concerns over the rise of zero-knowledge (ZK) digital identity projects, specifically warning that systems like World — formerly Worldcoin and backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman — could undermine pseudonymity in the digital world.
A new report by the European Central Bank (ECB) reveals that digital payment methods continue to gain ground across the euro area, though cash remains a vital part of the consumer payment landscape — particularly for small-value transactions and person-to-person (P2P) payments.
Geopolitical conflict rattles markets, but history shows panic selling crypto in response is usually the wrong move.