July Public Chain Industry Report: Solana Shines Amid Market Volatility, Layer2 Competition Intensifies
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July Public Chain Industry Report: Solana Shines Amid Market Volatility, Layer2 Competition Intensifies
The launch of spot Ethereum ETPs in July 2024, market volatility, and competitive growth in Layer 2 became focal points.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Stella L
In July, the cryptocurrency market was active and highly volatile, reflecting broader trends in global financial markets. The launch of spot Ethereum ETPs in the U.S., along with former U.S. President Trump's strong endorsement of Bitcoin, highlighted the resilience and significant growth potential of the crypto industry. Market conditions were complex and dynamic—Bitcoin prices gradually stabilized, while Solana emerged as one of the top-performing assets; meanwhile, Ethereum faced downward pressure following the ETP listing. Amid this volatility, the total market capitalization of public blockchain cryptocurrencies saw modest growth, driven primarily by key projects such as Bitcoin and Solana. With intensifying competition in the Layer 2 space, innovative projects and emerging players are reshaping the industry’s competitive landscape.
The data in this report is sourced from Footprint Analytics’ Public Chain Research page, which offers an easy-to-use dashboard containing the most critical statistics and metrics for understanding the public chain sector, updated in real time.
Crypto Market Overview
In July, overall financial market volatility increased. Large-cap tech and AI-related stocks, which led gains in the first half of the year, underperformed. The crypto sector made notable progress, including the launch of spot Ethereum exchange-traded products (ETPs) and a positive endorsement of Bitcoin by Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. president.
Price performance in July showed divergence. By month-end, the impact of the German government selling Bitcoin had diminished (concluding on July 13), and the repayment distribution to Mt Gox creditors had limited market impact. Bitcoin fluctuated during the month but ended July with a slight gain. Beyond Bitcoin, Solana stood out with a monthly increase of 25%. In contrast, Ethereum declined in price after the U.S. launch of spot Ethereum ETPs. Although anticipation around the ETPs had supported Ethereum’s price beforehand, subsequent selling pressure led to a decline.
Public Chain Overview
By the end of July, the total market cap of public chain cryptocurrencies rose 1.2% from June to reach $1.98 trillion. The leading chains were Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana, with market shares of 64.8%, 19.7%, 4.3%, and 4.1%, respectively. Bitcoin’s share increased by 1.5 percentage points, Solana’s by 0.6 percentage points, while Ethereum’s dropped by 1.5 percentage points.
Source: Public Chain Token Market Cap Share – July 2024
In July, the cryptocurrency market experienced significant fluctuations. Bitcoin started the month at $62,923 and closed at $64,938, gaining 3.2%. It hit its monthly low of $56,608 on July 5 and peaked at $68,806 on July 27. Ethereum opened at $3,438 and fell to $3,243 by month-end, a decline of 5.7%. Its lowest point was $2,939 on July 7, and it reached a high of $3,542 on July 21.
Source: Bitcoin and Ether Price Trends
Solana’s token price rose 18.2%, and its market cap grew 18.9%. Meme coin enthusiasm continued, with active on-chain activity. For example, several Neiro tokens surged after the owner of Doge Memecoin inspiration announced adopting a 10-year-old rescue Shiba Inu named Neiro.
Kaspa maintained strong momentum, with its KAS token rising 14.5% and market cap increasing 15.7%. KAS reached a new all-time high above $0.20 in July. Block Directed Acyclic Graph (blockDAG) technology attracted growing attention, especially after Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital (MARA) announced last month that it would diversify its mining operations and expand into Kaspa.
Source: Public Chain Token Prices and Market Caps – End of July 2024
In terms of Total Value Locked (TVL), public chain TVL reached $76.5 billion by the end of July, remaining flat compared to June. Ethereum, TRON, and BNB Chain continued to lead in TVL.
TON has become the fifth-largest chain by token market cap, but its DeFi ecosystem still has room to grow, ranking ninth in TVL at $770 million. Two decentralized exchanges, STON.fi and DeDust, account for over 60% of TON’s TVL.
Core Blockchain’s TVL surged 122.5% throughout the month, driven by the introduction of its Dual Staking model. This model rewards users who stake Bitcoin on Core for extended periods, further boosting their BTC staking rewards when they also stake CORE tokens.
Source: Public Chain TVL – End of July 2024
During a volatile month with mixed price performances, Polymarket, the decentralized prediction market on Polygon, stood out. Polymarket allows users to build portfolios based on predictions, earning returns if correct. Leveraging blockchain technology, Polymarket ensures transparent, secure, and tamper-proof trading on a wide range of topics including current events, politics, and public health. The U.S. election brought additional attention to Polymarket, whose TVL doubled in July.
Key Layer 1 Developments – July 2024
BNB Chain
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On July 18, BNB Chain officially announced it will host the “Be a Champion Builder” hackathon in Q3 2024, with a prize pool exceeding $500,000.
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BNB Chain completed its second Sunset hard fork.
Solana
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Solana launched a $400,000 grant program for developers of Solana Actions and Blinks tools.
NEAR
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Grayscale officially launched the Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund LLC, with NEAR as the highest-weighted asset in the fund.
Sui
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Sui announced the launch of the Sui Indexing Framework, providing customizable access to on-chain data.
Polygon
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Polygon launched its new ZK proof system "Plonky3" as an open-source toolkit, offering greater versatility than "Plonky2".
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Movement Labs, a developer of the Move programming language, joined Polygon’s AggLayer.
Ronin
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Sky Mavis released its H1 2024 recap, reporting over 3 million Ronin wallet downloads in the past six months, with RON daily active addresses surging to a record high of 1.5 million.
Ton
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The TON blockchain will launch a new Layer 2 network based on Polygon technology.
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The TON Foundation partnered with Animoca Brands’ Mocaverse to launch a $20 million ecosystem development initiative.
Core
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Core announced that Animoca Brands has launched a validator node on the chain to support Core’s security and decentralization.
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The Core Foundation introduced the dual staking model to enhance Bitcoin staking yields.
Layer 2
In July, amid a pullback in Ethereum’s price following the U.S. launch of spot Ethereum ETPs, Ethereum Layer 2 solutions experienced minor fluctuations. Arbitrum One, Optimism, and Base led in TVL market share with 59.8%, 20.2%, and 8.27% respectively, though all posted monthly growth rates below 5%.
Following the end of airdrop-driven activity, Blast’s TVL dropped 14.3%, and zkSync Era’s TVL declined 11.5%.
Scroll’s TVL grew 13.2%, driven by Scroll Canvas—an achievement, status, and on-chain credential platform within the Scroll ecosystem. Users interact with various ecosystem projects to earn achievements in the form of badges.
Source: Ethereum Layer 2 Overview – July 2024 (Rollups – Bridging Metrics)
Meanwhile, Bitcoin scaling solutions—including Layer 2s and sidechains—continued growing in July, although total TVL remained below June’s peak. Merlin, Bitlayer, and Rootstock held the largest TVL shares at 44.0%, 19.6%, and 10.3% respectively.
By the end of July, Solv Protocol became the largest DeFi protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem, with $570 million in TVL, accounting for 32.3% of the total TVL across Bitcoin scaling solutions.
Source: Bitcoin Ecosystem Public Chain TVL
The Layer 2 space is becoming increasingly competitive. A new project called TON Applications Chain (TAC) is developing a Layer 2 solution for the TON blockchain ecosystem. Backed by The Open Platform, an investor focused on TON, TAC will leverage Polygon’s Chain Development Kit (CDK).
Meanwhile, Movement, the first Move-based EVM Layer 2 blockchain, launched its public testnet Parthenon on July 30. Through the MOVEDROP initiative, the community is actively involved in the transition from testnet to mainnet.
Key Layer 2 Developments – July 2024
Arbitrum
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The Arbitrum community launched a proposal vote to allow deployment of new Orbit chains on any blockchain, aiming to open Orbit chain deployment beyond Ethereum.
Optimism
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Optimism announced results for Retro Funding Round 4, allocating 10 million OP tokens to 207 projects, with Zora and Layer 3 each receiving 500,000 OP.
Starknet
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ZKX, a derivatives trading protocol on Starknet, founder Eduard announced that ZKX will cease operations.
Base
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U.S. politicians can now accept cryptocurrency donations on the Base chain.
Merlin Chain
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Merlin Chain partnered with Ordzaar and OrdinSwap to launch the "Fourth Major Ordinal" whitelist campaign.
Rootstock
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Rootstock announced it will host its inaugural ecosystem summit on August 1.
Blockchain Gaming
In July, a total of 1,588 games were active across major blockchain networks. BNB Chain, Polygon, and Ethereum dominated the market with shares of 21.7%, 19.0%, and 15.1%, respectively.
Ronin, opBNB, and Saakuru Verse led in daily active users (DAU), with average monthly DAUs of 1.1 million, 479,600, and 354,500 respectively. By the end of July, their DAU market shares were 32.6%, 18.7%, and 3.4%.
Source: Daily Active Users of Blockchain Games Across Public Chains
Ronin’s DAU share surged from 18.6% on July 1 to 32.6% on July 31, driven by the recovery of Pixels data and the launch of new games Lumiterra and Fight League. Additionally, Ronin games performed exceptionally well in user retention, frequently appearing on weekly new-user retention leaderboards. For instance, in the final week of July, five Ronin games ranked among the top ten in new-user retention.
opBNB’s DAU share rose from 13.1% to 18.7% in July, fueled by the growing popularity of its games MEET48 and SERAPH: In The Darkness. Notably, SERAPH: In The Darkness, a dark fantasy ARPG, gained significant traction on opBNB since its mid-July launch.
Oasys Layer 2 Saakuru Verse saw a sharp DAU increase in the final 10 days of June, but growth slowed in July, with DAU share dropping from 14.1% at the start of the month to 3.4% by month-end. Nonetheless, Saakuru maintained the third-highest average DAU across all chains. Its unique agent model—where chain operators (AAGs) cover transaction costs—allows users and developers to interact without paying gas fees, significantly lowering the entry barrier.
Base’s DAU skyrocketed from 8.2K to 222.5K within the month, averaging 101.6K, largely due to the success of the game BLOCKLORDS Dynasty.
For more insights into blockchain gaming trends, read “Blockchain Gaming Report – July 2024: Challenges and Opportunities Amid Market Volatility and Data Divergence”.
Funding Activity
In July, the public chain sector recorded nine funding rounds totaling $570 million, a 20.1% decrease from June. Two deals did not disclose amounts, and no Layer 1 projects announced new funding rounds.
Public Chain Funding Events – July 2024 (Source: crypto-fundraising.info)
Igloo, parent company of Pudgy Penguins, raised $11 million in a round led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. Igloo established Cube Labs to develop Abstract, a consumer-focused Layer 2 blockchain built using Matter Labs’ ZK Stack and EigenLayer’s EigenDA. This new blockchain aims to make decentralized application development easier, cheaper, and more secure.
As the number of Layer 2 solutions continues to grow, infrastructure supporting these Layer 2s is emerging as a promising business. In July, Caldera, an Ethereum rollup deployment platform, and Network3, a Web3 AI infrastructure developer, secured new funding.
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