What is the most profitable cryptocurrency sector in the first half of 2024?

Author: Biteye Core Contributor Viee

Editor: Biteye Core Contributor Crush

The first half of this year is almost over. Since BTC broke the previous bull market high and surged to 70,000, there has been no exciting brilliance.

In recent months, the market has fluctuated repeatedly, and the good money-making flag set at the beginning of the year is also slightly wavering. In any case, the main upward wave of the bull market has certainly not yet arrived, and there will be times when opportunities abound, so there's no need to rush.

This is a suitable moment for reflection and review. This article is a statistical comparison of the return rates of different crypto sectors from 2024 to the present. It is no longer an era of "picking up money"; which sector is the most profitable? You will know after reading this.

How have different crypto sectors performed in terms of returns from the beginning of the year to now?

Based on the average YTD (January 1, 2024, to June 21, 2024) price return rates of the top 10 tokens in each sector, data sourced from CoinGecko. The performance of the cryptocurrency sectors in the first half of 2024 is shown in the figure below.

Meme coins have become the most profitable sector

In recent months, "value investing is in vain, go all in on MEME and live in the palace" has gradually become one of the "trading mantras" of this bull market.

According to statistics, there is no doubt that Meme coins are the most profitable sector from 2024 to now, with the highest average return rate reaching 2405.1%. As of June 19, among the 10 largest Meme coins by market cap, 3 were newly launched tokens around March-April: Brett (BRETT), BOOK OF MEME (BOME), and DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON (DOG).

Among them, BRETT had the highest return rate, rising 14353.54% from its issuance price; dogwifhat (WIF) increased by 933.93% YTD, triggering the Meme coin frenzy at that time.

It is worth noting that the profitability of Meme coins is 8.6 times that of the second most profitable sector, RWA, and 542.5 times that of the least profitable DeFi sector.

Note: The actual return rate of the lowest-ranked Layer 2 sector is negative and is not compared in multiples.

The second most profitable sector RWA has a return rate of 213.5% from 2024 to now

The concept of RWA (Real World Assets) has been widely discussed in recent months, with major institutions, including BlackRock, laying out plans in this sector.

As a result, RWA briefly became the most profitable sector in February, ranking first in return rates, but was subsequently surpassed by Meme coins and the AI sector, until it again exceeded the AI narrative at the end of March and performed well in early June.

Among the leading RWA tokens by market cap, MANTRA (OM) and Ondo (ONDO) had the largest increases, at 1123.8% and 451.12% YTD, respectively, while XDC Network (XDC) performed the worst, declining by 44.38%. Apart from some established DeFi projects, RWA projects are generally in the early stages and deserve more attention.

The AI sector follows closely behind, with a return rate of 71.6%

As early as the end of 2023, the AI sector frequently appeared in the annual outlooks of major investment institutions. As Messari stated in its 2024 investment forecast, AI has become the new darling of the tech field. Indeed, it has lived up to expectations, with an average return rate of 71.6% YTD in the AI sector, ranking third.

Among them, Arkham (ARKM) had the highest increase at 215.50%. Next was AIOZ Network (AIOZ), which rose by 192.19%. The tokens Render (RNDR) and Fetch.ai (FET), which attracted a lot of attention in the first half of the year, had return rates of 57.47% and 116.00%, respectively, performing well.

DePIN and Layer 1 achieve steady growth

DePIN had a basically negative return rate in the first half of the first quarter, but began to reverse the trend since March, with a current return rate of 58.7%.

Among large-cap DePIN tokens, the best performer is JasmyCoin (JASMY), with an increase of 323.42%, followed by Arweave (AR) and Livepeer (LPT), with YTD increases of 174.07% and 116.06%, respectively.

In contrast, Helium (HNT) performed poorly, being the only large-cap DePIN token to decline over 50%, with a return rate of -50.94%.

DePIN is also one of the sectors where capital is betting in this bull market. If the total market cap of DeFi grows tenfold, and the total market cap of DePIN reaches half that of DeFi, then the total market cap of DePIN will reach $500 billion, with at least 20 times growth potential.

The Layer 1 (L1) sector has a return rate of 43.0% from 2024 to now. Although Solana (SOL), as a public chain that has birthed many high-potential Memes, has received a lot of attention, with a YTD increase of 22.91%, it has still declined significantly compared to the 85.05% return rate in mid-March.

The best-performing large-cap L1 cryptocurrencies are actually Toncoin (TON) and Binance Coin (BNB), with increases of 204.72% and 86.10%, respectively.

In contrast, Bitcoin (BTC) has risen 45.06% from the beginning of the year after reaching a new high, while Ethereum (ETH), despite the high expectations from ETF applications, has only a YTD increase of 49.65%, comparable to BTC.

GameFi, DeFi, and Layer 2 lag behind

The GameFi sector has a return rate of 19.1%, which is one of the sectors with relatively little rotation since the beginning of the year. Overall financing is substantial, but it has yet to produce a blockbuster.

Among large-cap GameFi tokens, the best performers are FLOKI (FLOKI) with an increase of 362.79%, Ronin (RON) with 21.16%, and Echelon Prime (PRIME) with 5.27% YTD; other large-cap tokens have negative return rates, including GALA (GALA) at -13.43% and Immutable (IMX) at -32.02%.

The DeFi sector performed reasonably well in the first quarter, boosted by the fee conversion proposal of Uniswap (UNI) at the end of February, but has slightly underperformed entering the second quarter, with a return rate of 3.4% from the beginning of the year to now. The large-cap DeFi token with the highest return rate is Maker (MKR), with a YTD increase of 49.88%.

The Layer 2 (L2) sector is the worst performer, with a return rate of -40.59%, nearly halving. Among large-cap L2 tokens, AEVO (AEVO) and Starknet (STRK) performed the worst, with return rates of -85.40% and -63.16%, respectively.

Mainstream Ethereum L2s also performed poorly: Optimism (OP) has a return rate of -54.64%, and Arbitrum (ARB) is at -53.71%. Notably, Mantle (MNT) stands out with a YTD return rate of 26.09%.

Calculation Method

This study analyzed the performance of the most关注的 cryptocurrency sectors from January 1, 2024, to June 21, 2024, based on data from CoinGecko, comparing the average daily price return rates of the top 10 tokens in each sector with their prices at the beginning of the quarter. For tokens launched during the quarter, their first-day price data was used for comparison.

Representative tokens in each sector (top 10 by market cap) were selected based on their market cap ranking on the last day of the quarter.

To better meet the objectives of this study, specific chains' sectors, sectors with only a few large-cap tokens, or sectors that overlap significantly with other sectors were excluded.