Embracing the Bull Market: 2024 Ecosystem Outlook and Trends Across Major Blockchains
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Embracing the Bull Market: 2024 Ecosystem Outlook and Trends Across Major Blockchains
BTC: Ordinals Renaissance, Amplified by Multiple Macro Tailwinds
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: 0xWendy, SevenUp DAO
The upcoming bull market is vastly different from previous cycles. Public chain infrastructure has matured significantly—so much so that it's now redundant—and startup projects offer an overwhelming array of innovations. Let’s dive into the chains and trends:
1. Chains
1. BTC: Ordinals Renaissance, Amplified by Macro Tailwinds
As the king of all chains, Bitcoin hosts the most compelling narrative with Ordinals. While 99% of inscriptions will likely go to zero next year (or even within months), the massive rallies in U.S.-listed mining stocks like $MARA have caught traditional financial markets' attention. Beyond halving expectations, transaction fees from inscriptions are a key driving force.
As previously mentioned, pure memes are hard to sustain. This niche will be largely project-driven, especially with support from centralized exchanges like Binance and VC backing, such as launchpads ($auction, $turt, $bake), DeFi (Babylon staking, various swaps), bridges ($mubi), and L2s like Stacks.
An interesting trend is the West gradually joining what was initially an Eastern-led frenzy—from Asian-Chinese-led platforms like Unisat and OKX to Western dev teams at CBRC and Layer 1 Foundation. The future evolution is promising.
I recently wrote an essay on Bitcoin’s value proposition—check out the IOSG Ventures official account for details. My main argument is that under the combined influence of halving, ETF approvals, and rate cuts, Bitcoin’s “value storage” narrative is increasingly resonating with mainstream institutions. Amid high prices and its digital gold status, retail participants are still choosing to engage through the Bitcoin ecosystem.
2. Ethereum: Too Big to Fail, Stepping Back for L2s
Despite recent FUD, Ethereum’s position and contributions to the crypto space are unquestionable. The most anticipated Ethereum narrative in 2024 is the Cancun upgrade. Sharding and Blob transactions will drastically reduce L2 costs, allowing Ethereum’s mainnet to step back as a consensus and data availability layer, providing foundational support for numerous Layer 2 networks. EigenLayer’s restaking is also expected to launch on mainnet next year.
In the short term, rollups still occupy a small share. High gas fees remain unfriendly to small retail players, and it's difficult to generate new narratives amid fierce L2 competition. Therefore, I personally will focus more energy on L2s.
3. Solana: Wall Street’s Favorite, the Leading DePIN Chain
From being known as the "crash-prone chain" to stepping out of FTX’s shadow, Solana has become Wall Street’s darling—its financial muscle can win over skeptics. $PYTH and $JTO sparked an airdrop frenzy, while NFTs like Mads performed well. As a high-performance public chain, Solana is tightly tied to institutional-backed DePIN narratives. Despite ongoing debates about DePIN’s real value—some call it old wine in a new bottle—multiple forces (top-tier firms like Multicoin doubling down, plus SOL’s official support) are positioning DePIN as one of the key narratives capable of sustaining the next bubble.
DePIN valuations and imagination will expand. Projects like $honey (aliens drawing maps), $mobile (U.S. mobile), rendering giant $rndr, CDN-like Grass, and the hottest AI plays Akash, Gensyn, and ionet are all poised for takeoff.
4. Base: Backed by a Strong Parent, Constant Innovation at the Application Layer
I place Base this high not only because of its leading TVL among L2s but also due to my belief in application-driven growth as the right strategy.
Base’s ecosystem fund has made serious investments and incubation efforts, clearly guided by coherent logic and taste. If you examine the projects Base supports, you’ll notice they don’t prioritize raw tech or performance but creatively leverage blockchain decentralization and low L2 gas fees for novel experiments. From Paradigm-backed Friend.tech to a16z-incubated gambling mini-game ethxy, 1kx-funded battle game Play Arena, and Paragraph—a creator platform rivaling Mirror—all are standout applications. Although the team emphasizes Base’s decentralization and separation from Coinbase’s business, some things are best left unspoken.
As the only compliant exchange in the U.S., Coinbase’s connections, capabilities, and status speak for themselves. With top-tier backers behind many of Base’s apps, its development next year deserves close attention.
5. Blast: The Pinduoduo of L2s, Simple, Brutal, and Well-Funded
Although Blast feels like Blur’s second pool, I remain positive. Operated by top-tier institutions and founders, despite jokes about being a “Lido dealer,” its massive TVL provides a solid foundation. In my earlier analysis of Blast, I emphasized its generous airdrop incentives for developers (50%). Where there’s great reward, brave builders will follow—no shortage of memecoins to chase here. Ironman explained that Blast aims to build a stronger NFT ecosystem and may migrate Blur, so we can expect a small springtime for NFTs and NFTFi on Blast.
6. A Few Other Noteworthy Infra Projects
Briefly mentioned without elaboration: parallel EVM chains like Neon and Nomad; Metis, a localized hype play tied to Vitalik’s mom narrative; experienced and savvy ZkFair; Sei/Sui, likely to rebound and lift trapped investors; Bera, strong in CX and liquidity; Manta, another Lido dealer; Mantle, DeFi Lego builder; and technical ZK leaders zksync and Scroll. This bull run will pressure many L2s to issue tokens, but token launches are just temporary fixes—if there’s no real ecosystem or apps, they’ll become ghost towns.
7. Among gaming chains, Ronin stands out to me
Axie, once the bull market king, fell from grace after its bridge hack, but the team showed resilience, kept building, and maintained strong funding. Recently, Pixels emerged as a bright star, and RON’s price performance has been impressive.
2. Trends
Stepping beyond individual chains, we can identify several key bull market trends:
1. New asset issuance models fuel speculation via low cost, high odds
Everyone talks about Ordi—let’s look at similar mechanics. On Solana, probability-based (gambling) on-chain lotteries like Zero and FoaminScribe offer extremely low-cost scratch cards, attracting bot-powered gamblers en masse. Speculation is a key driver of industry growth. The dopamine rush from high odds defines bull markets, so project teams should deeply consider these mechanics when designing products.
2. Memes Are the Crown Jewel of Crypto Bull Markets
From Pepe and Harry Potter in the first half of the year, to傻龙 (Dumb Dragon) and second-hand Honda, a viral meme emerges every few weeks. Deeply understanding meme culture is essential. Crypto spirit was born from rebellion against tradition—irony, defiance, and niche geekiness form a cyber aesthetic. Memes aren’t organic wild phenomena—they’re carefully orchestrated blends of capital, community sentiment, timing, and luck. They represent overflow from market liquidity and emotion, and their massive wealth creation stories are vital for attracting external capital and attention. The rational way to play memes? Be the first memorable narrative. More importantly, play with your IQ set to 50.
3. Apps Run on DeFi, But DeFi May Not Shine This Cycle
GameFi and SocialFi are essentially DeFi wrapped in new skins. However, I believe DeFi won’t repeat its last bull market glory. Vitalik’s recent article criticizes over-financialized apps. DeFi stacking has high barriers and low fun—likely not ideal for mass adoption.
4. Apps Drive Supporting Solutions—Quietly Building Wealth
The rise of applications fuels tools like Privy and other AA/MPC wallet solutions—the wallet landscape is shifting. Full-chain game engines like *Mud and Dojo behind GameFi fall into this category. Users may not fully grasp them yet, but compared to Unity and Unreal, GameFi/AW infrastructure holds vast potential.
5. Mobile Is Sprouting
It’s still early, but OKX’s heavy investment in mobile wallets—and its success—shows that pulling out your phone to ape is a real user need. Though mobile and on-chain competition is fierce, the pie is huge, and the winner remains uncertain.
In summary, this bull market features a flourishing ecosystem with many exciting opportunities and experimental directions. Wishing all readers great fortune and wealth in the Year of the Dragon—may your life be full of love, and your love life never lack partners.
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