Binance is celebrating its seven-year anniversary this month, hosting events, rewards, and merchandise giveaways for its users. CEO Richard Teng expressed his optimism for the future.
Renowned crypto exchange platform Binance has released its half-year report for 2024, revealing insights into the state of the market. It noted a 37.3% growth in total crypto market capitalization year-to-date, bringing it to approximately $2.27 trillion.
A strong first quarter, which saw over 60% increase in market cap, was the primary reason for this growth. However, the second quarter faced challenges, with the market reversing some of its gains and falling by 14.3%.
Layer 1 and Layer 2 Developments
Layer 1 protocols have had a strong start in 2024, with Bitcoin continuing to dominate the market. Binance lists several factors for this success, including April’s Bitcoin halving, the Runes Protocol’s launch, and the US spot BTC ETFs’ approval.
As per the report, Ethereum also saw significant developments with the explosion of restaking and the EIP-4844 update. Meanwhile, Binance’s native blockchain BNB focused on projects like opBNB and Greenfield.
The exchange also pointed out Solana’s focus on meme coins in H1 2024, with the launch of blockchain links, or “blinks”. Notable meme coins like dogwifhat (WIF) and BONK saw exponential growth, increasing by thousands of percent.
The Layer 2 sector has also been vibrant, according to the report. The promise of airdrops, especially for zero-knowledge (zk) projects, was the primary reason for this attraction. Interestingly, this has led to large capital inflows, increasing the total value locked (TVL) in L2s by 90% to $43 billion.
DeFi and Stablecoins Market
According to Binance’s report, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) saw its TVL rising by 72.8% year-to-date to $94.1 billion from $54.4 billion at the start of the year.
Meanwhile, the stablecoins market has also seen a notable recovery. It reached a market cap of $161 billion as of June 30, marking a two-year high. This is just 14.5% below the peak in April 2022, before the TerraUSD (UST) crash. While Tether’s USDT remains dominant with a market cap of $112.9 billion, Circle’s USDC and Ethena’s USDe have gained market share.
The first half of this year was not lucky for the NFT market, which struggled with declining sales and falling floor prices. Similarly, Web3 gaming also saw a drop in token market cap but maintained healthy user growth. Projects like Pixels and Hamster Kombat attracted players through token airdrops.
Binance is celebrating its seven-year anniversary this month, hosting events, rewards, and merchandise giveaways for its users. CEO Richard Teng expressed his optimism for the future.
“We will continue to build the best and most trusted global crypto platform to support you in your journey. We are still early in the crypto cycle and the best is yet to come,” he stated.
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