Binance Research, the market research arm of Binance, has today published a report outlining the crypto industry’s performance, titled “Full-Year 2023 & Themes for 2024.” The report gives institutional-grade analysis and insights to cryptocurrency investors. This report examines the cryptocurrency market in-depth, looking at its performance over the last 12 months and outlining eight factors that could influence the sector in 2024.
An integral aspect of Binance Research’s mission is to help newcomers and seasoned insiders alike understand the cryptocurrency market. The carefully researched year-end report covers all the bases, from monthly and quarterly industry insights to the most recent thematic crypto narratives.
Key highlights of the report
- There were substantial gains in Q1 and Q4 propelled a 109% growth in market in 2023. Growth in Q4 was catalysed by optimism over Bitcoin’s impending halving event and the confidence around Bitcoin ETF approvals. Risk assets, like cryptocurrencies, found an enabling financial climate characterised by resilient global GDP growth and tempered inflation rates.
- There were 1,173 investments into Web3 projects, pooling in a total of $9.0B. A significant 36.5% of funding went to infrastructure projects, with CeFi taking up 13.3% and DeFi 8.6%.
- The gaming community saw a rise in activity towards the end of the year. Last week, there were 12.6 million distinct active wallets, which more than double the figure at the beginning of the year (5.8 million).
- December saw the biggest volumes of the year for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), worth US$1.7B; with growth led by Bitcoin NFTs. Furthermore, there was an intriguing NFT marketplace battle between Blur and OpenSea, and this will likely overflow into 2024.
- TVL increased 38.9% year-on-year (YoY) in 2023, indicating strong growth in decentralised finance (DeFi). The tremendous rise of liquid staking tokens (LSTs) and LSTfi, the increasing use of physical assets, and the development of intent-centric architecture were the main factors propelling the expansion.
Although there was a rebound in October 2023, market fundamentals changed and the worldwide stablecoin market cap fell 5.2% year-to-date. New forces like Collateralized Debt Position (CDP) and LST-backed stablecoins have entered the market, but centralised stablecoins still control 92% of the market. Tether’s USDT has increased its dominance to 70.6% nonetheless.
Binance Research predicts the crypto market will continue to thrive in the years to come, citing 2023 as evidence that the industry can overcome obstacles through innovation, adaptation, and growth.
Binance Research also shared their thoughts on eight interesting themes they believe will be big in the cryptocurrency market in 2024 based on their professional study. Changes in the Bitcoin ecosystem, the ownership economy, RWAs, AI, on-chain liquidity, institutional adoption, and other relevant topics are all part of these themes.