2024: The Year of Public Chain Reshuffle, Hyperliquid Emerges as a Supernova

Solana, Sui, Hyperliquid, and TON Among Public Chains Destined for Remarkable 2024

2024 is destined to be a remarkable year in the development of cryptocurrency. From the official approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs to former President Trump's proposal to use Bitcoin as a national strategic reserve, cryptocurrencies are gradually becoming an internationally recognized emerging asset class. Bitcoin has broken the $100,000 barrier, while MEME coins on Solana are emerging one after another, overshadowing many previously popular projects, resulting in a stark contrast in the crypto market.

Behind these changes, public chains remain the core battleground of the crypto market, and all these competitions are reflected in the competition among public chains.

So, from a data perspective, which public chains truly experienced a rise in 2024? Which public chains' decline may not be underestimated but rather a real downturn? PANews conducted a review and summary on this.

Data Explanation: The focus of this review is on the popular Layer 1 and Layer 2 chains, looking at dimensions such as TVL, token prices, market capitalization, active addresses, and transaction volumes throughout the year, from January 1, 2024, to December 29, 2024. Some public chains that launched their mainnet in 2024 used the initial data at the time of their token launch and year-end data. TVL data is sourced from Defillama, daily active and transaction volume data from Tokenterminal and official explorers, and price data from Coingecko.

The public chains reviewed include:

Layer 1: Solana, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Sui, Aptos, TON, Avalanche, Cardano, Hyperliquid, Fantom (Sonic), Tron, Near

Layer 2: Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, Polygon, Blast, Scroll, StarkNet, Taiko, Linea.

Layer 1 TVL Average Growth of 7 Times, Hyperliquid and TON with Highest Increases

In terms of TVL data, overall, the TVL of the analyzed public chains grew by 117.7% over the year. Among them, Layer 1 saw an average TVL growth of 707.69% in 2024, while Layer 2 projects had an average TVL growth of 8515.22%. However, this is mainly due to the low initial TVL of the Layer 2 chain Taiko at its launch, resulting in a growth multiple of 825 times. Excluding Taiko, the average growth of other Layer 2 chains this year was 294.69%.

Among Layer 1 chains, the highest TVL growth was seen in Hyperliquid, TON, and Aptos, all exceeding 10 times, with Hyperliquid's TVL increasing by 4407% since its launch. In Layer 2, Taiko and Base were the kings of growth this year, with Taiko's TVL increasing by 82500% from its launch to the end of the year, while Base's TVL grew by approximately 721.51% throughout the year.

In addition to growth, some public chains did not see significant increases after a year and even experienced declines. zkSync saw the most severe decline, with its TVL dropping by 41.25%, followed by Optimism (-16.69%), Fantom (-13.95%), Tron (-9.17%), and Polygon (-1.67%).

Half of Public Chains Experienced Declines in Daily Active Users, Solana with the Highest Daily Activity

In terms of network activity, Hyperliquid, Sui, and TON had the highest increases in daily active addresses in 2024, with increases of 13381.48%, 3350.55%, and 2409.43%, respectively. Besides these three public chains, Base, Aptos, and Solana also saw their daily active data increase by over 10 times throughout the year.

Surprisingly, among the 22 analyzed public chains, 9 chains experienced varying degrees of decline in daily active data this year. Among them, zkSync and StarkNet saw the most severe drop in daily active users, exceeding 90%. Additionally, Near, Blast, Polygon, Avalanche, Cardano, Optimism, and Tron all experienced varying degrees of decline compared to the beginning of the year.

At the beginning of the year, Tron had 2.2 million daily active addresses, ranking first among all public chains. After a year of changes, Solana became the public chain with the highest daily active addresses at 4 million, and in terms of peak daily active data, Solana also recorded the highest number of 8.8 million daily active users.

In terms of