2024 Crypto Assets Market Narrative Review: AI and Meme Lead, Layer 2 Lags Behind

In the past year, the Crypto Assets market has shown a diversified development trend, with significant differences in performance across different sectors. Based on market data from a certain data platform, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of the main narrative themes in the Crypto Assets market from January 1 to December 29, 2024. The study tracked the performance of the top ten tokens for each theme, calculated their average return relative to the beginning of the year (or the first trading day), selected representative tokens with high market capitalization at the end of the period, and excluded specific public chain ecosystems and sectors with high overlap with other themes. The results show that the annual returns of different narrative themes vary greatly, with a range from -20.7% to +2,939.8%.

AI and Meme Coins: Market Stars of 2024

The most outstanding crypto assets narrative theme of 2024 is undoubtedly the AI sector, with an average increase of an astonishing 2,939.8% YTD ( since the beginning of the year. Following closely is the Meme coin sector, which has achieved a return rate of 2,185.1% this year. The returns of these two sectors far exceed those of other popular narrative themes by more than twice.

The Meme coin sector significantly outperformed starting in March, with a single-month return soaring from 96.6% to 1,713.1%. Despite the volatility, Meme coins maintained the highest returns for most of 2024. However, after reaching an all-time high return of 3,211.4% on December 9, the sector experienced a correction as market interest waned.

In contrast, the AI sector experienced a strong rebound at the end of the year, with returns in December nearly doubling from 1,598.1% to 2,939.8%. This was mainly due to the explosive growth of the AI agency platform Virtuals Protocol )VIRTUAL(, which also became the token with the largest increase in the crypto assets market this year. Ultimately, the AI sector surpassed Meme coins at the end of December to become the annual return champion.

The Real World Assets ) RWA ( sector ranks third with an annual average return of 819.5%. The sector performed steadily at the beginning of the year, reaching a return of 365.3% by April 12, before consolidating for the next six months. In November, driven by the price increase of MANTRA ) OM (, the RWA sector restarted its upward trend.

Layer 1, DePIN and DeFi: Performance is mediocre

Layer 1, decentralized physical infrastructure ) DePIN ( and decentralized finance ) DeFi ( sectors performed similarly in 2024, recording returns of 142.5%, 135.4%, and 101.4%, respectively. This means that Layer 1 and DePIN slightly outperformed Bitcoin's increase of 125.5% during the same period, while the performance of the DeFi sector was even lower than that of Bitcoin.

In other words, conservative investors holding only Bitcoin can achieve returns comparable to at least three major narrative themes.

Games and Layer 2: Underperforming

GameFi and Layer 2 have become the worst-performing sectors in 2024, even lower than Ethereum's 49.0% increase. Specifically, the GameFi sector has only risen by 14.7% this year, with six of the top ten game coins experiencing declines ranging from 3.1% to 32.9%.

Layer 2 is the only sector this year to record negative returns, falling by 20.7%. Amid the trend of projects seeking to launch their own Layer 2 solutions, seven of the top ten Layer 2 coins saw their prices decline, with drops ranging from 6.3% to 75.3%.

2024 Crypto Assets Narrative Performance Ranking

Based on the average annual price return rates of the top 10 tokens in each sector, the performance rankings for the cryptocurrency narrative in 2024 are as follows:

1. AI: +2,939.8%
2. Meme: +2,185.1%
3. RWA: +819.5%
4. Layer 1: +142.5%
5. DePIN: +135.4%
6. DeFi: +101.4%
7. GameFi: +14.7%
8. Layer 2：-20.7%

![Crypto Assets narrative annual performance: AI and Meme increased by over 20 times, Layer 2 fell by 20.7% at the bottom])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-7f10d54608398d4d8993b59e3bdc8ee2.webp(

This year's Crypto Assets market has once again demonstrated its high volatility and diversity, with significant performance differences across various sectors. Investors need to closely monitor market trends and make informed investment decisions.

![Crypto Assets narrative annual performance: AI and Meme increased by over 20 times, Layer 2 dropped by 20.7% at the bottom])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-e54073507ba641fcac4a3ba2ccfdb3f9.webp(