November 2024 Public Chain Industry Report: Bitcoin Hits New High Leading the Comprehensive Bull Run

In November 2024, the blockchain industry welcomed the long-awaited "bull run" market. Bitcoin continuously set new price records, approaching the $100,000 mark, with its market capitalization surpassing major traditional assets like silver. Ethereum also demonstrated a strong recovery momentum, while altcoins achieved significant rebounds. While Bitcoin Layer 2 maintained strong growth, Ethereum Layer 2 faced increasingly fierce competition, with relatively moderate growth.

Market Overview

In November, the cryptocurrency market made a historic breakthrough, with Bitcoin experiencing an astonishing increase, soaring from $69,386 to $96,427, a rise of 39.0%. Ethereum followed closely behind, rising 47.8%, climbing from $2,511 to $3,711. Bitcoin's outstanding performance pushed its market value beyond silver and Saudi Aramco, maintaining its position as the seventh largest global asset after nearing the $100,000 mark on November 23.

The results of the US election have become an important factor driving the growth of the crypto market, potentially having a profound impact on comprehensive cryptocurrency legislation and regulatory oversight. The market has reacted positively, especially reflected in the outstanding performance of popular sectors such as meme coins, decentralized artificial intelligence (deAI) projects, and decentralized science (DeSci).

The broader financial markets also performed strongly. The financial sector led the stock market under expectations of U.S. tax reform and deregulation. However, there was some volatility in the international markets, with the renminbi under pressure amid concerns over potential U.S. tariffs, while gold prices fell as election-related uncertainties eased.

Layer 1

In November 2024, the total market capitalization of blockchain surged by 41.1% to $2.8 trillion. Although Bitcoin maintained its dominant position with a 68.1% share, it decreased from 70.1% in October, due to the strong performance of altcoins this month. Ethereum reversed its downward trend, reaching a market share of 15.9% (an absolute increase of 0.6%), while Solana surpassed BNB Chain with a share of 4.0%.

Against the backdrop of Bitcoin continuously setting price records, altcoins have shown outstanding performance. Stellar (XLM) leads with a 466.8% increase, followed by Hedera (HBAR) with a 269.7% rise, Cardano (ADA) with a 201.5% increase, and Polkadot (DOT) with a 130.7% rise. Notably, Stellar's surge significantly reflects the market's increasing attention to its cross-border remittance infrastructure and CBDC capabilities, which may be influenced by expectations of regulatory clarity following the U.S. elections.

The TVL in the DeFi sector grew by 43.0% to $90.8 billion in November. Ethereum led the growth with a 61.6% increase, while Tron and Solana ranked second and third, respectively. Although most of the top 15 chains by TVL experienced growth, Polygon saw a decrease of 5.9%, attributed to capital outflows from a certain prediction market platform following the conclusion of the U.S. presidential election. The downward trend of TON since October has continued, due to a decrease in momentum of games and Meme activities on a certain instant messaging platform.

The Move technology stack blockchain maintains a strong development momentum. Sui has reached new highs in token price and market capitalization, while establishing strategic partnerships with well-known financial institutions. Aptos is driving on-chain activity growth through its Meme launch platform. Meanwhile, Movement is about to launch its mainnet, with impressive testnet data: there are already over 6.6 million accounts and 153 million transactions.

Stablecoins remain one of the central segments on the stage. USDS, as the first major DeFi native stablecoin, has launched on Solana, and reports suggest that a certain company is about to receive approval from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) for RLUSD. As the influence of stablecoins continues to grow, the industry is paying attention to whether some companies will issue their own blockchains. The CEO of a stablecoin issuing company stated that his company will remain neutral rather than launch its own blockchain, addressing industry concerns.

Bitcoin Layer 2 and Sidechains

In November 2024, Bitcoin Layer 2 and sidechains achieved significant growth, with a total TVL reaching $2.4 billion, an increase of 34.6% compared to October. Competition among major platforms for Bitcoin liquidity intensified.

Core has strengthened its market leadership position, with TVL increasing by 55.7% to $890 million and market share expanding to 37.4%. This growth is attributed to the Fusion upgrade in November, which introduced dual staking and liquidity Bitcoin staking (LstBTC), allowing users to earn higher returns while maintaining liquidity on Core's BTCfi platform.

Bitlayer maintains the second position with a TVL of $580 million, but its market share has dropped to 24.4%. BSquared continues to grow, with a monthly increase of 53.1% to a TVL of $260 million, rising to third place, while Rootstock ranks fourth with a TVL of $240 million.

At the BTCfi project level, Pell Network has become the leader with a TVL of $400 million, followed by Avalon Finance (Bitlayer and Core) and DeSyn (Bitlayer) with strong performances across multiple chains, each having over $200 million in TVL.

Ethereum Layer 2

In November 2024, the total TVL of Ethereum Layer 2 solutions (standard bridge portion) reached 27.5 billion USD, an increase of 2.0% from October, continuing to lag behind the growth rate of Bitcoin scaling solutions.

A well-known Layer 2 platform maintains its leadership position with a TVL of $11.3 billion and a market share of 41.0%, while Base surpasses Optimism to take the second position with a TVL of $5.1 billion and a share of 18.6%. This is due to the surge in activity brought by the social meme deployment platform Clanker based on Farcaster and the AI agent creation and deployment platform Virtuals Protocol. At the same time, Optimism's market share has dropped to 17.3%.

Starknet's TVL increased by 5.1%, surpassing Blast to rank fourth, while Blast continued to decline, dropping by 14.5%. The growth of Starknet is attributed to the STRK staking launched on November 26 and the CEO's commitment to significantly enhance performance in the next quarter. Meanwhile, World Chain performed excellently, with TVL increasing by 131.4% to $570 million.

In November, the Ethereum Foundation strengthened financial transparency by releasing the 2024 report, while outlining its core values and funding strategies. The founder of Ethereum emphasized the future development of Ethereum, including the implementation of DAS to enhance Layer 2 scalability, as well as infrastructure improvements to support diverse applications ranging from ENS to consumer payments.

Blockchain Game Public Chain

In November, the number of active blockchain games increased by 4.6% to 1,696, with BNB Chain, Polygon, and Ethereum maintaining market leadership in game distribution, accounting for shares of 20.9%, 15.4%, and 13.4%, respectively.

User participation patterns have shown new changes, with opBNB, Ronin, and Nebula (SKALE) leading the way with an average daily active user (DAU) of 1.8 million, 900,000, and 400,000 respectively. OpBNB's DAU increased by 46.1%, thanks to the promotion of SERAPH: In The Darkness and MEET48, as well as some games migrating from the BNB chain to opBNB. Meanwhile, Ronin has demonstrated a strong recovery, boosted by the launch of the new game Fableborne and the resurgence of Lumiterra.

Games based on a certain instant messaging platform have shown mixed results. Although TON's ecosystem is facing challenges, with DAU down 41.9% to 116,400, Sui has gone against the trend, with DAU up 23.1% to 233,300, mainly thanks to the success of BIRDS and significant user retention metrics.

Financing Situation

In November 2024, the blockchain sector recorded 12 financing events, with a total amount of $79.8 million, a decrease of 23.3% compared to October, marking the lowest monthly figure since August. Among these, five events did not disclose specific financing amounts.

Zero Gravity Labs (0G Labs) has become the largest recipient of funding this month, announcing a $40 million seed round financing and a $250 million token purchase commitment. The company has shifted its positioning from an initial modular blockchain provider to a crypto AI startup, developing a decentralized AI operating system (dAIOS) for building AI applications on-chain.

Several Layer 1 blockchains secured funding this month, including Cytonic, Pharos, Talus Network, EtraPay, and Datalayer. Notably, AvaCloud, a custodian blockchain service provider built by Ava Labs, acquired EtraPay, gaining a team composed of renowned privacy technology experts and the innovative encrypted token standard Encrypted ERC (eERC).

The Layer 2 ecosystem continues to maintain an active investment level, with six projects receiving a new round of financing, including Bitcoin Layer 2's Bitfinity and Lnfi Network, Ethereum Layer 2's Heurist and Corn, as well as other Layer 2 projects Akave and AgentLayer.