Author: Lim Yu Qian, CoinGecko; Compiler: Deng Tong, Golden Finance
What is the most popular cryptocurrency narrative in 2024?
So far, the most popular cryptocurrency narrative in 2024 is the Meme Coin narrative, which has attracted a total of 30.67% of global investor interest in the main Meme Coin narrative and 25 Meme Coin trends. In other words, as the market quickly expanded from dog-related Meme coins to other animal and personality-themed Meme coins, nearly one-third of cryptocurrency narrative interest this year is focused on more speculative opportunities rather than an emphasis on fundamentals.
Specifically, the main meme coin narrative ranked first with a 14.36% share of crypto narrative interest. This is an increase of 6.04 percentage points from the 8.32% share of interest in the meme coin narrative last year.
In addition to the overall meme coin narrative, four meme coin trends managed to make it into the top 20 crypto narratives: Solana meme coin ranked 4th with a 7.65% share of narrative interest, Base meme coin ranked 11th with a 2.13% share, as well as AI meme ranked 15th with 1.49% and cat-themed meme coin ranked 16th with a 1.19% share.
Artificial Intelligence-Related Narratives Attract 16% of Investor Interest
Another popular cryptocurrency narrative in 2024 was the Artificial Intelligence (AI) narrative, which combined accounted for 15.67% of investor interest across the entire AI narrative and 5 other AI-related narratives.
Artificial Intelligence ranked second in overall popularity this year, accounting for 12.58% of investor interest. Despite an increase of 1.26 percentage points from last year’s 11.32% interest share, the AI narrative still declined in popularity compared to the Meme Coin narrative.
In addition to the overall AI narrative and AI meme coin trends, the AI agent narrative also made it into the top 20 with a 1.17% investor interest share.
RWA and DePIN Gain Attention
Other popular crypto narratives that received more attention in 2024 compared to the previous year were the Real World Assets (RWA) and DePIN narratives.
RWA’s share of investor interest increased by 2.16 percentage points, from 6.48% in 2023 to 8.64% in 2024. As a result, its popularity ranking rose from sixth to third. Similarly, the DePIN narrative rose in popularity ranking from 13th to eighth, with its share of investor interest increasing by 1.56 percentage points.
On the other hand, the GameFi narrative declined in popularity, with its share of investor interest falling by 6.77 percentage points from 10.49% in 2023 to 3.72% in 2024.
Growing Interest in Solana and Base-Related Narratives
Solana-related narratives attracted a total of 14.30% of investor interest, trailing closely behind the AI narrative in terms of popularity. Although the Solana meme coin attracted nearly half of the attention, investors remained interested in the broader Solana ecosystem, which ranked fifth with 5.78% of investor interest. The Pump.fun narrative itself only accounted for 0.61% of investor interest, which may reflect its overlap with the Solana meme coin narrative.
Meanwhile, two Base-related narratives also entered the top 20 this year as that blockchain’s popularity grew. In total, the Base ecosystem and Base meme coin narratives accounted for 4.87% of investor interest.
In total, 5 of the 67 blockchain ecosystems ranked among the top 20 cryptocurrency narratives for 2024. In addition to Solana and Base, these popular blockchain ecosystem narratives include the Ethereum ecosystem (with a 1.82% share of investor interest); the Sui ecosystem (1.04%); and the TON ecosystem (0.85%).
Most Popular Crypto Narratives in 2024
The 20 most popular crypto narratives in 2024, ranked by market share of annual investor interest, are as follows:
Of the 200 different crypto narratives that received traction this year, the top 20 crypto narratives collectively accounted for 78.72% of global investor interest. The remaining 21.28% of crypto narrative interest is spread across 180 narratives.
The Most Popular Crypto Narratives in 2023
Ranked by investor interest share from January 1 to December 21, 2023, the 15 most popular crypto narratives in 2023 are: