After a strong fourth quarter of 2023, the total capitalization of the crypto market continued to grow next year, reaching a maximum of $2.9 million on March 13. CoinGecko analyzed the dynamics of the last three months and identified seven main points that reflect the state of the industry.
Bitcoin's Leap
From January to March, the first cryptocurrency grew by 68.8%, setting a historical high at $73,098, according to an analyst report.
The dynamics of bitcoin in the first quarter. Data: CoinGecko.Immediately after the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs in the United States, the coin's exchange rate adjusted by 16%, to a quarterly low of $39,505. Then the quotes rose by 85%, and after that they rolled back by 18%.
Digital gold closed the quarter at $71,247. By the time of writing, the asset price had sunk by 12% to $62,370.
During the reporting period, the average daily trading volume of bitcoin increased by 89.8% to $34.1 billion.
Exchange-traded funds
As of April 2, the total amount of assets under management (AUM) of bitcoin-based spot ETFs amounted to over $55.1 million.
AUM of spot Bitcoin ETFs. Data: CoinGecko.IBIT from BlackRock has accumulated more than $17 billion and has established itself as the second largest bitcoin fund. In the first quarter, the product had the largest trading volume among competitors.
The AUM of the largest GBTC from Grayscale amounted to $21.7 billion. The net outflow from the instrument since its conversion has exceeded $6.9 billion. Analysts believe that this was due to profit-taking by early investors and high management fees.
Restaking
The total number of funds blocked in Ethereum restaking protocols increased by 36%, to 4.3 million ETH (~$13.1 billion).
The amount of funds in the restaking protocols. Data: CoinGecko.The majority of assets (52.6%) are accounted for by liquid restaking protocols. The largest was EtherFi (21%), whose volume grew by 2616% in the quarter and by the end of March amounted to about 910,000 ETH (~$2.77 billion).
Solana-memes
The top 10 meme coins in the Solana network grew by 801.5%, and their capitalization reached $8.32 billion.
Dynamics of Solana meme tokens. Data: CoinGecko.Among the most popular meme tokens, only two - Bonk (BONK) and Samoyedcoin (SAMO) — existed before the fourth quarter of 2023. In three months, BONK lost the lead to the Dogwifhat coin (WIF), whose capitalization exceeded $3 billion.
https://forklog.com/news/coingecko-solana-privlekla-naibolshij-interes-investorovNFT indicators
NFT trading volumes on the 10 largest marketplaces in the first quarter of 2024 amounted to $4.7 billion.
Trading volume on NFT marketplaces. Data: CoinGecko.Blur remained the leading trading platform with a turnover of over $1.5 billion. Its market share was 27.6%.
Magic Eden managed to surpass Blur in terms of trading volume in March ($760 million) thanks to the introduction of the Diamond reward program and the launch of an Ethereum-based marketplace in conjunction with Yuga Labs.
CEX
The volume of spot trading on centralized exchanges (CEX) has increased by 95.3% over the past three months and reached $4.29 trillion, which is the highest figure since the fourth quarter of 2021.
Spot trading volume on CEX. Data: CoinGecko.Binance remained the largest CEX, ending March with a 50% market share, gradually regaining its dominance throughout the quarter. During the same period, there was a noticeable increase in the number of new listings and project launches on the stock exchange.
DEX
The share of Ethereum in the trading volume of decentralized exchanges (DEX) fell below 40% in the first quarter of 2024.
DEX trading volume across networks. Data: CoinGecko.In February, the indicator reached a record low of 30%. Despite the decline in market share, Ethereum-based DEX still occupy a large part of the direction.
The protocols at the Arbitrum managed to increase volumes thanks to the STIP incentive program aimed at maintaining activity. Base and Solana also demonstrated positive dynamics due to the hype around meme tokens.
Earlier, CoinGecko analysts calculated the total number of cryptocurrencies. Today, there are over 2.52 million assets, which is 5.7 times more than their number at the end of 2021 — 440,000.