2024 may be the most important year for on-chain development after the summer of DeFi, and on-chain narrative investment opportunities continue to emerge. According to the author's observation, as the concept of "everything can be meme" becomes more and more popular, Pump Fun's rapid asset issuance becomes mainstream, Meme can start from 0, and the upper limit of the on-chain space market value (not listed on top CEX) is about 1 billion US dollars.
For ordinary users, there is enough profit space on the chain, and the existence of top CEX is the last link for on-chain investment exit. Due to the intensification of conflicts between VCCoin and the community, new assets listed on top CEX often perform poorly; and most of the old coins listed on top CEX are in trouble, the team's motivation has not recovered or cannot keep up with market changes, waiting to unlock the flat state.
This article is mainly based on the prediction of on-chain transactions and investments, focusing on on-chain interpretation, which is only the author's shallow prediction, not as any investment advice, for consideration only.
According to Blockchain data, DEX trading volume exceeded US$320 billion in December 2024, reaching the highest monthly volume in history, with a year-on-year growth of more than 200%; DEX/CEX trading volume accounted for 11.64% in December 2024, an increase from 9.55% in December 2023, and the highest DEX/CEX trading volume accounted for 13.86% in 2024. The continuous optimization of on-chain tools such as Web3 wallets, led by CEX, may accelerate the popularization of on-chain transactions; the popularity and wealth effect caused by Meme is one of the important factors driving users to migrate from CEX to DEX.
The combination of AI Agent and tokenization is the narrative of the rapid development of the crypto market in the second half of 2024, and various types of AI Agents are emerging in an endless stream.
It took only a few months from the chatbot Truth Terminal (GOAT) opening the Pandora's box of AI Agents to the ai16z DAO and the Shaw team behind it to create the Eliza framework for one-click deployment of AI Agents and their tokens based on large language models.
There are at least ai16z-Eliza, Virtuals Protocol-Game Framework, arc Framework, Zerebro-Zerepy and Dolion Framework on the market. Among them, ai16z - Eliza and Virtuals Protocol - Game Framework have formed a strong ecological moat, and the popular sub-coins derived from AI Agents are rapidly entering the market.
According to Coingecko data, the total market value of AI Agent-related tokens has reached 12 billion US dollars. Among them, Virtuals Protocol's VIRTUAL plays a role similar to the SOL trading pair token on the Solana network on the Base network, while sub-coins such as AIXBT, GAME, and LUNA have stimulated the prosperity of the ecology, giving birth to virtual mother coins and becoming the AI Agent-related tokens with the highest market value, reaching 3.5 billion US dollars.
Pump Fun, as a very in-depth and fast Launchpad for deploying tokens on the Solana network, has become the most profitable application in cryptocurrency this year, with tens of thousands of Memecoin issued every day.
With the rise of Pump Fun, other blockchain networks have also begun to follow suit and launched similar Memecoin issuance and trading platforms, such as SunPump on the Tron network, Uptos on the Aptos network, and Clanker based on Farcaster on the Base network.
In addition, Memecoin has gradually accumulated, everything can be Meme, and the demand for refinement has become increasingly strong. Vertical Pump Fun issuance platforms have gradually emerged, such as vvaifu, which focuses on the issuance of AI Agents, and Pump Science, which focuses on DeSci. AI Agents have become a multi-billion dollar interaction, and DeScI is about to see Binance's attention to DeSci and the listing and manipulation potential of the iconic protocol Bio Protocol. In essence, it is based on different narratives and imaginations. The demand for decentralized currency issuance and rapid asset issuance is expected to generate more interpretations based on more vertical issuance platforms based on Pump Fun in the future.
As a benchmark, Binance has launched perpetual contract transactions for DEGEN, AERO, VIRTUAL, and AIXBT, but has not yet launched any spot for the Base ecosystem.
Base is currently the only Ethereum L2 network that can compete with Solana in terms of traffic, transaction activity, and wealth effect. Unlike Solana, Base's ecological effect will be concentrated, represented by Virtuals and Farcaster systems, among which the market value of Virtuals ecosystem has approached 5 billion US dollars, leading the Crypto x AI Agents. The Base ecosystem may be the one with the highest probability of being listed on the top exchanges, and it is only a matter of time before the first Base ecosystem spot is listed on Binance.
As a public chain under the US compliant exchange Coinabse, relying on the Coinbase wallet, Base-USDC opens the legal currency channel to the bank account.
With the Trump administration officially inaugurated, Coinbase and Base may be the first exchanges and networks to reap the dividends if good policies that favor crypto are hindered.
In addition, with Base head Jesse Pollak officially joining the Coinbase executive team in October and leading the Coinbase wallet, the Base network should receive further attention in Coinbase's strategic vision.
Hyperliuqid has greatly increased community participation and user attention through large-scale HYPE token airdrops and wealth effects. At present, Hyperliuqid's Arbitrum Bridge Fund has sunk more than $2 billion USDC, and is actually the 15th-ranked exchange; the total market value of the platform currency HYPE once exceeded $10 billion, and the FDV exceeded $30 billion.
From the development path of CEX, especially the relatively young CEX, it mainly started with contracts with excellent performance and liquidity, but the real brand moat is the wealth effect brought by exclusive spot.
Hyperliquid's HIP-1 and HIP-2 standards make it possible to introduce exclusive assets, which is a capability that on-chain exchanges that have tried to move from contracts to spot transactions in the past do not have. The HIP-1 standard allows tokens to be traded directly on the chain, while the HIP-2 standard supports the market performance of these tokens by embedding liquidity at the time of issuance.
In the case of high difficulty and high asking price for listing on the top CEX, listing Hyperliquid through spot seat auctions has become a good choice. Projects that have completed auctions on Hyperliquid but have not yet been officially launched include Solv Protocol (SOLV) and Azuki-Anime (ANIME).
Currently, the main market value and trading volume of Hyperliquid spot are concentrated in HYPE, and there are only two other projects with a market value of more than 100 million US dollars.
With a high market value of HYPE, more funds are needed to drive the market; the platform and some excellent exclusive projects have joined forces to jointly create the wealth effect of exclusive assets, which is obviously higher, and HYPE will ultimately benefit from the increase in Hyperliquid's trading volume and reputation.
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