Coingecko: What are the most popular encryption narratives of 2024?

Author: Lim Yu Qian, CoinGecko; Translated by: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

What is the most popular cryptocurrency narrative of 2024?

So far, the most popular cryptocurrency narrative of 2024 is the Meme coin narrative, which has attracted a total of 30.67% interest from global investors in the major Meme coin narratives and 25 Meme coin trends. In other words, as the market rapidly expands from dog-related Meme coins to other animal and personality-themed Meme coins, nearly one-third of the interest in cryptocurrency narratives this year is focused on more speculative opportunities rather than an emphasis on fundamentals.

Specifically, the main Meme coin narrative ranks first with a 14.36% share of crypto narrative interest. This is an increase of 6.04 percentage points from last year's Meme coin narrative interest share of 8.32%.

In addition to the overall Meme coin narrative, four types of Meme coin trends have successfully entered the top 20 cryptocurrency narratives: Solana meme coin ranks 4th with a narrative interest share of 7.65%, Base meme coin ranks 11th with a share of 2.13%, AI meme ranks 15th with 1.49%, and cat-themed Meme coin ranks 16th with a share of 1.19%.

Artificial intelligence-related narratives attracted 16% of investor interest

Another popular cryptocurrency narrative in 2024 is the artificial intelligence (AI) narrative, which accounts for a total of 15.67% of investor interest among the entire AI narrative and five other AI-related narratives.

This year, the overall popularity of artificial intelligence ranks second, accounting for 12.58% of investor interest. Although this represents an increase of 1.26 percentage points compared to last year's interest share of 11.32%, the popularity of the AI narrative still declined compared to the Meme coin narrative.

In addition to the overall AI narrative and AI meme coin trends, the AI agent narrative has also entered the top 20 with a 1.17% share of investor interest.

RWA and DePIN are under attention

Compared to the previous year, the other popular cryptocurrency narratives that received more attention in 2024 are real-world assets (RWA) and DePIN narratives.

The investor interest share in RWA increased by 2.16 percentage points, rising from 6.48% in 2023 to 8.64% in 2024. As a result, its popularity ranking rose from sixth to third place. Similarly, the popularity ranking of the DePIN narrative rose from thirteenth to eighth place, with its investor interest share increasing by 1.56 percentage points.

On the other hand, the popularity of the GameFi narrative has declined, with its share of investor interest dropping from 10.49% in 2023 to 3.72%, a decrease of 6.77 percentage points in 2024.

Interest in discussions related to Solana and Base is increasing day by day

The narrative related to Solana attracted a total of 14.30% of investor interest, closely following the popularity of artificial intelligence narratives. Although Solana meme coins attracted nearly half of the attention, investors remain interested in the broader Solana ecosystem, which ranks fifth with 5.78% of investor interest. The narrative of Pump.fun itself accounts for only 0.61% of investor interest, which may reflect its overlap with the Solana meme coin narrative.

Meanwhile, with the increasing popularity of the blockchain, two narratives related to Base have also entered the top 20 this year. Overall, the narratives of the Base ecosystem and Base meme coin account for 4.87% of investor interest.

Overall, 5 out of 67 blockchain ecosystems made it into the top 20 cryptocurrency narratives for 2024.** In addition to Solana and Base, these popular blockchain ecosystem narratives also include the Ethereum ecosystem (investor interest share of 1.82%), the Sui ecosystem (1.04%); and the TON ecosystem (0.85%).**

The Most Popular Cryptocurrency Narratives in 2024

The 20 most popular cryptocurrency narratives of 2024 (ranked by annual investor interest market share) are as follows:

Among the 200 different cryptocurrency narratives that have garnered attention this year, the top 20 cryptocurrency narratives account for a total of 78.72% of global investor interest. The remaining 21.28% of cryptocurrency narrative interest is distributed among 180 narratives.

The Most Popular Cryptocurrency Narratives of 2023

According to the ranking of investor interest shares from January 1 to December 21, 2023, the 15 most popular cryptocurrency narratives in 2023 are: