It’s no longer the era of “picking up money”. What is the most profitable crypto track in the first half of 2024?

Original author: Biteye core contributor Viee

Original translation: Biteye core contributor Crush

The first half of this year is almost over. Since BTC broke through the previous bull market high and rose to 70,000, it has never seen any exciting glory again.

In recent months, the market has fluctuated repeatedly, and the goal of making money set at the beginning of the year has also been slightly shaken. In any case, the main uptrend of the bull market has not yet arrived, and there will be opportunities everywhere, so dont be anxious.

It is a good time to reflect and review at this point. This article is a statistical comparison of the return rates of different crypto tracks from 2024 to the present. It is no longer an era of picking up money. Which track is the most profitable? You will know after reading this article.

01 How have the returns of different crypto tracks performed since the beginning of the year?

The ranking is based on the average YTD (January 1, 2024 to June 21, 2024) price return of the top 10 tokens in each track. The data source is Coingecko. The performance of the cryptocurrency track in the first half of 2024 is shown in the figure below.

Meme coin becomes the most profitable track

In recent months, value investing is all in vain, all in MEME and live in the palace has gradually become one of the cryptocurrency trading mantras in this bull market.

After statistics, there is no doubt that Meme coin is the most profitable track so far in 2024, with the highest average return rate reaching 2405.1%. As of June 19, among the 10 Meme coins with the largest market value, 3 were newly launched around March-April: Brett (BRETT), BOOK OF MEME (BOME) and DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON (DOG).

Among them, BRETT had the highest rate of return, up 14,353.54% from its issue price; dogwifhat (WIF) rose 933.93% from 2024 to date (YTD), triggering the Meme coin craze at the time.

It is worth noting that the profitability of Meme Coin is 8.6 times that of the second most profitable track RWA, and 542.5 times that of the least profitable DeFi track.

(Note: The actual return rate of the Layer 2 track ranked last is negative, so no multiple comparison is performed)

The second most profitable track, RWA, has a return rate of 213.5% since 2024.

The concept of RWA (Real World Assets) has been discussed constantly in recent months, and major institutions have made arrangements in this field, including BlackRock Fund.

As a result, RWA briefly became the most profitable track in February, ranking first in return rate, but was subsequently surpassed by Meme Coin and AI tracks. It was not until the end of March that it surpassed AI Narrative again, and it also performed well in early June.

Among the RWA tokens with the highest market capitalization, MANTRA (OM) and Ondo (ONDO) have the largest increases, 1123.8% and 451.12% YTD respectively, while XDC Network (XDC) has the worst performance, down 44.38%. Except for some old DeFi, the RWA project is generally in its early stages and can be paid more attention to.

The AI track followed closely behind with a return rate of 71.6%.

As early as the end of 2023, the AI track has frequently appeared in the annual outlooks of major investment institutions. As Messari said in its 2024 investment forecast, AI has become the new darling in the technology field. Indeed, it lived up to expectations. From 2024 to date, the average return rate of the AI track is 71.6%, ranking third.

Among them, Arkham (ARKM) had the highest increase of 215.50%, followed by AIOZ Network (AIOZ), which increased by 192.19%. Render (RNDR) and Fetch.ai (FET), which received much attention in the first half of the year, also performed well with return rates of 57.47% and 116.00% respectively.

DePIN and Layer 1 achieve solid growth

DePINs return rate was basically negative in the first half of the first quarter, but it began to reverse the downward trend since March, and its return rate has reached 58.7% so far.

The best performing DePIN token among large-cap market cap tokens is JasmyCoin (JASMY), with a 323.42% increase, followed by Arweave (AR) and Livepeer (LPT), with YTD increases of 174.07% and 116.06%, respectively.

In contrast, Helium (HNT) performed poorly and was the only large-cap DePIN token to fall by more than 50%, with a return of -50.94%.

DePIN is also one of the tracks that capital is betting on in this round of bull market. If the total market value of DeFi increases 10 times, and the total market value of DePIN reaches half of DeFi, then the total market value of DePIN will reach 500 billion US dollars, with at least 20 times of growth space.

The return rate of the Layer 1 (L1) track from 2024 to date is 43.0%. Although Solana (SOL) has received a lot of attention as a public chain that has given birth to many high-potential memes, with a YTD increase of 22.91%, it has still fallen a lot compared to the return rate of 85.05% in mid-March.

The best performing large-cap L1 cryptocurrencies are actually Toncoin (TON) and Binance Coin (BNB), with increases of 204.72% and 86.10% respectively.

In comparison, Bitcoin (BTC) is up 45.06% from the beginning of the year after hitting a new high, while Ethereum (ETH) has only risen 49.65% YTD, comparable to BTC, despite high expectations through ETF applications.

GameFi, DeFi, and Layer 2 Lag

The GameFi track has a return rate of 19.1%. It is a track with relatively less market rotation since the beginning of the year. It has raised a lot of funds overall, but has not yet produced a hit product.

The best performing large-cap GameFi tokens were FLOKI (FLOKI) with a 362.79% increase, Ronin (RON) with a 21.16% increase, and Echelon Prime (PRIME) with a 5.27% YTD increase. Other large-cap tokens had negative returns, including GALA (GALA) with a -13.43% increase and Immutable (IMX) with a -32.02% increase.

The DeFi track performed well in the first quarter, boosted by the Uniswap (UNI) fee conversion proposal at the end of February, but it was a little underpowered in the second quarter, with the return rate falling to 3.4% year-to-date. The large-cap DeFi token with a high return rate is Maker (MKR), with a YTD increase of 49.88%.

The Layer 2 (L2) track was the worst performer, with a return rate of -40.59%, almost halved. Among the large-cap L2 tokens, AEVO (AEVO) and Starknet (STRK) performed the worst, with returns of -85.40% and -63.16%, respectively.

Mainstream Ethereum L2 also performed poorly: Optimism (OP) had a return rate of -54.64%, and Arbitrum (ARB) had a return rate of -53.71%. What is more noteworthy is that Mantle (MNT) was far ahead, with a YTD return rate of 26.09%.

02 Calculation Method

Based on data from Coingecko, this study examines the performance of the most watched cryptocurrency tracks from January 1 to June 21, 2024, based on the average daily price returns of the top 10 market cap tokens in each track compared to the prices at the beginning of the quarter. For tokens launched during the quarter, the comparison is made to their first day price data.

The representative tokens in each track (the top 10 tokens by market capitalization) are selected based on the market capitalization ranking on the last day of the quarter.

To better serve the purpose of this study, chain-specific tracks, tracks with a small number of large-market-cap tokens, or tracks with a high degree of overlap with other tracks were excluded.

This research is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always conduct your own research and exercise caution when investing in any cryptocurrency or financial asset.

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