Review of Mainstream Public Chain Performance in 2024: Significant Data Fluctuation, Hyperliquid Leads in Multiple Indicators

The year 2024 is destined to be a remarkable one in the history of cryptocurrency development. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs have been approved, and cryptocurrencies are gradually becoming an internationally recognized emerging asset class. Bitcoin has broken the $100,000 barrier, and MEME coins are emerging one after another on Solana, with the market experiencing both highs and lows. Public chains remain the core battleground of the crypto market, and competition mainly manifests between public chains.

So from a data perspective, which public chains will truly rise in 2024? Which public chains' decline is not underestimated? A review and summary of this was conducted.

Data Description: The subject of this inventory is high-profile Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks, focusing on dimensions such as annual TVL, token prices, market capitalization, active address counts, and transaction volumes, with a time span from January 1 to December 29, 2024. Some public chains that went live on the mainnet during the year use the initial data at the time of token launch and year-end data. TVL data comes from Defillama, daily active and daily transaction volume data are sourced from Tokenterminal and official browsers, and price data comes from Coingecko.

The public chains reviewed this time include:

Layer1: Solana, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Sui, Aptos, TON, Avalanche, Cardano, Hyperliquid, Fantom (Sonic), Tron, Near

Layer 2: Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, Polygon, Blast, Scroll, StarkNet, Taiko, Linea

Layer1 TVL average growth of 7 times, Hyperliquid and TON with the highest increase

Overall, the TVL data of these public chains analyzed has grown by 117.7% within the year. Among them, Layer 1's TVL has averaged a growth of 707.69% in 2024, while Layer 2 projects have seen an average growth of 8515.22% in TVL. However, the high growth of Layer 2 is mainly due to Taiko's relatively low TVL at the time of its launch, resulting in a growth multiple of 825 times. Excluding Taiko, other Layer 2 projects have averaged a growth of 294.69% this year.

The highest TVL growth in Layer 1 is seen in Hyperliquid, TON, and Aptos, all exceeding 10 times, with Hyperliquid's TVL increasing by 4407% since its launch. In Layer 2, Taiko and Base are the kings of growth this year, with Taiko's TVL increasing by 82500% from its launch until the end of the year, and Base's TVL growing approximately 721.51% throughout the year.

Some public chain data has decreased instead of increased. zkSync has seen the most significant decline, with TVL down 41.25% this year, followed by Optimism(-16.69%), Fantom(-13.95%), Tron(-9.17%), and Polygon(-1.67%).

Half of public chains see a decline in daily active users, with Solana having the highest daily active users.

In terms of network activity, Hyperliquid, Sui, and TON saw the highest growth in daily active addresses in 2024, with increases of 13381.48%, 3350.55%, and 2409.43%, respectively. In addition, several public chains such as Base, Aptos, and Solana also experienced a tenfold increase in daily active data within the year.

Surprisingly, among the 22 public chains, 9 have seen a decline in daily active users to varying degrees this year. zkSync and StarkNet have experienced the most severe decline in daily active users in 2024, exceeding 90%. The daily active user levels of Near, Blast, Polygon, Avalanche, Cardano, Optimism, and Tron have all declined to varying degrees compared to the beginning of the year.

At the beginning of the year, the number of daily active addresses for Tron was 2.2 million, ranking first. After a year of changes, Solana became the public chain with the highest number of daily active addresses, reaching 4 million. In the highest daily active data recorded, Solana also became the public chain with the most users, achieving a peak of 8.8 million daily active addresses.

In terms of daily transaction volume, Hyperliquid has again become the public chain with the largest growth, with the number of transactions increasing by approximately 248900% this year. Taiko grew by 4471.43%, and Base's transaction volume increased by 1948.78%, all of which are public chains with growth exceeding ten times. Avalanche(C-Chain) has seen the most significant decline in network transaction volume, dropping from 2.8 million transactions at the beginning of the year to 260,000 transactions, a decrease of 90.71%. However, this decline is mainly due to the fact that January 1, 2024, coincides with a peak period of abnormal transaction fluctuations for Avalanche. Excluding this abnormal fluctuation, the daily average transaction volume of Avalanche basically remains at several hundred thousand transactions per day, with no significant fluctuations.

The decline of zkSync has also reached 90%, which is indeed quite noticeable in contrast. Since the end of the airdrop, the number of on-chain transactions has rapidly dropped from the original million-level to just over a hundred thousand transactions per day.

Price performance of coins fluctuates, HYPE takes the lead.

In terms of token performance, half of the tokens rose and half fell throughout the year. The Hyperliquid token performed the best, with an annual increase of about 1272.30%, and a maximum increase of 1648.00%. It became the only public chain token with an increase of more than 10 times. However, it is important to consider that the Hyperliquid token HYPE was only issued at the end of November, which does give it a certain advantage in terms of price increase compared to other public chains when calculated from the opening price. There were also some other public chain tokens issued during the year, many of which had small increases, and quite a few even saw declines.

The public chains with better token performance include Sui, TON, Tron, and BNB Chain, with token prices rising by more than 100%. Solana has a high market heat this year, but compared to January 1, 2024, its token SOL price has only increased by 92.26%.

Compared to the beginning of the year, the token prices of 10 public chains have fallen to varying degrees. Excluding the 2 undistributed tokens, Base and Linea, this proportion is exactly 50%. Among the declining tokens, StarkNet and Blast experienced the largest decreases, reaching 75% and 65%, respectively.

In terms of market capitalization, Ethereum still holds the position of the big brother among public chains, with a market value of approximately $274.2 billion at the beginning of the year and reaching $409.4 billion by the end of the year, representing an annual market value growth of about 49.28%. BNB consistently ranks second in market capitalization, with a growth rate slightly higher than SOL.

Ethereum is the most subdued, Solana is in full swing

Solana is a public chain that must be mentioned in 2024, as it has shown remarkable data changes this year, completely stepping out of the shadow of the FTX collapse. It has not only made significant breakthroughs in scale but also has the momentum to compete with Ethereum. In the past year, Solana has led the MEME trend, becoming the public chain with the most users thanks to the popularity of MEMEs.

At the beginning of the year, Solana's TVL ranked fourth, and by the end of the year, it rose to second. At the beginning of the year, the number of daily active users ranked only eighth, while by the end of the year, it became the public chain with the highest daily active users.

As the big brother of public chains, Ethereum seems to be performing with little fluctuation amid the bustling year of 2024. Many data points show minimal differences between the end and the beginning of the year, with daily active users growing by 9% over the year and daily transaction counts remaining nearly flat. The only notable change is a 127% increase in TVL, but if we exclude the 49% increase in ETH price itself, this data doesn't seem to reflect much real change either. Moreover, the stagnation of TVL in terms of currency is also a reason for the lackluster performance of the coin price.

The main reason for this change may come from the diversion of Layer 2. For Ethereum, whether it can maintain this stable state in the new year or experience more fluctuations may require more innovative content to lead the way.

Sui vs Hyperliquid, the competition between a rising star and a supernova?

Hyperliquid is undoubtedly the supernova of the public chain track this year, bringing many surprises to the market, with almost all data growth rates ranking first, such as daily active user growth, transaction volume growth, and TVL growth ranking second (, and token price growth. However, in Hyperliquid's rapid rise, there are also some objective factors to consider. First, it has the shortest birth time, making it one of the youngest among the analyzed public chains. Second, although the growth rate is high, in terms of overall scale, it still lags far behind public chains like Ethereum or Solana. Especially for active user numbers, Hyperliquid currently has a total user count of only 286,500, which is still lower than Solana's daily active users at the beginning of the year. Other data, such as TVL volume, is about $1.7 billion, which is one-fifth of Solana's.

However, Hyperliquid is already approaching Solana in terms of daily trading volume, ranking second. Yet, in terms of market capitalization, it lags behind several public chains that have performed far worse than it this year. From this perspective, Hyperliquid's growth potential in 2025 remains enormous, but this development may require stronger and more sustained data support.

Sui is considered a major competitor to Solana in the future, and from the data performance perspective, the Sui network has also performed quite well this year. The TVL has grown nearly 7 times this year, daily active users have increased by 33.5 times, and the number of transactions has exceeded 300 million on the highest single day. The token price has also increased the most among public chains, except for Hyperliquid, with a rise of about 441.13% this year and a peak increase exceeding 520.25%. In terms of growth level, Sui's growth rate in 2024 has already surpassed Solana in some areas, but another challenge it faces now is the competition from projects like Hyperliquid and Aptos. In 2025, whether the Sui ecosystem can explode may require finding some new breakout points.

In addition to the several representative public chains mentioned above, other public chains are also not content to remain idle in 2024. Some are transforming towards AI, represented by Near, while others are upgrading their brands by issuing new public chains, such as Fantom changing to Sonic. Moreover, the Layer 2 track is also one of the hottest public chain narratives in 2024. After several star Layer 2s distributed airdrops this year, their on-chain performance has generally been poor. The best performer is Base, a Layer 2 that currently has no token plans. Additionally, Taiko is another Layer 2 that is not very popular in the market but has performed well on-chain. However, its overall data volume is still not large, and its future development remains to be observed.

Finally, by comparing the relationships between the various data of these 22 public chains, it can be seen that the tokens with the highest increase in 2024 are basically the public chains with the best growth in active users. From this perspective, the most important indicator for the development of public chains may still be users. For investors, how to assess the future expectations of a project may also hide the secrets behind these simple data.

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