2024: The Year Bitcoin Halving and Memecoins Redefined Crypto Finance

As the best year in crypto's history comes to a close, it's worth looking back at how it went and where it leaves us for 2025.

2024 was a landmark year for crypto. Bitcoin led the show, surging past the much-awaited $100,000 mark in early December. But it wasn’t just about Bitcoin’s success. It was also about key infrastructural upgrades and cutting-edge innovations across Layer-2s, Real-World Assets (RWAs), and Crypto AI.

Here's a quick recap of how 2024 unfolded in crypto.

Cruising Past $100K, Bitcoin Surges To All-Time High

2024 began with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) approving spot bitcoin ETFs from Blackrock, Fidelity, and other top institutions. This move marked a historic turning point for the crypto industry, paving the way for massive institutional inflows into bitcoin.

As the year progressed, the fourth Bitcoin Halving occurred in April, setting the stage for the next phase of bitcoin's mining reward cycle. Options contracts went live on spot bitcoin ETFs, catalyzing mass adoption of the flagship digital asset.

American and Russian lawmakers proposed strategic bitcoin reserves, aiming to bolster their respective countries' long-term economic resilience. And then came the big milestone—bitcoin crossed the much-awaited $100,000 mark in early December.

Institutions Responded Overwhelmingly To Bitcoin ETFs

Bitcoin ETFs reached a market cap of over $132 billion, with more than $10 billion inflows since Donald Trump won the American presidential election. Both retail and institutional interest led to holistic industry growth in scan 2024, driving new use cases and solving for real-world problems.

"The approval of bitcoin ETFs has legitimized the asset class as an institutional grade investment. Besides the incoming liquidity and positive price activity, bitcoin ETFs have increased BTC's popularity. It's not surprising that Bitcoin DeFi has attracted more than $3 billion in TVL, despite its nascency," said Ryan Chow, co-founder and CEO of Solv Protocol.

Layer-2s, Rwas, Crypto AI Drove Infrastructure Development

Alongside bitcoin, AI emerged as a leading narrative, dominating crypto mindshare with an all-time high of 48 percent by November. Currently, the crypto-AI sector has a market cap of over $34 billion with a strong growth potential.

"AI's biggest challenges revolve around trust, transparency, and accountability. But by utilizing blockchain—in particular, zero knowledge proofs—we can ensure verifiable data, fair contributor compensation, and a trustless builder ecosystem, which in turn creates scalable innovation in a more trusted environment," explained Tiancheng Xie, co-founder and CTO of Polyhedra Network.

According to a16z's Builder Energy dashboard as well, crypto developers are heavily focusing on AI with over 34 percent of projects using AI in 2024. The dashboard also shows building blockchain infrastructure is the second most popular category this year with over 19 percent builder activity.

Solana, Near, Base Topped Builder Interest, Memecoins Surged Past $130B

In September 2024, a record-breaking 220 million wallet addresses interacted with a blockchain at least once, the highest ever in crypto’s history. On average, there are 30-60 million monthly active crypto users currently, or around 5-10 percent of the 617 million global crypto owners.

The surge in on-chain interactions has been primarily driven by Solana, NEAR, and Base. Interestingly, Solana and Base also lead the list of chains in builder interest. Meanwhile Base, with a 10.7 percent builder interest, has some of the most popular memecoin projects like Brett and Goose.run driving user adoption.

Memecoins are now a $130 billion industry, despite all the controversies surrounding this asset class. Many analysts consider the sudden rise of memecoins in 2024 as a speculative fad and aberration, with others considering it the epitome of digital culture and successfully leveraging speculation as a use case. As Riva Tez of LayerZero Labs said at Consensys 2024, memes have helped crypto win the "narrative war".

"Memecoins capture the spirit of the internet—playful, inclusive, and dynamic. But their communities also provide a rare sense of belonging in a day and age where loneliness is an epidemic in modern society. Brett for me stands out as a beacon of connection—uniting people through humor, vibrant communities, and shared experiences. It has become a movement that transforms digital engagement into joy, purpose, and inclusivity, all while driving real-world impact through its inspiring charitable initiatives in water and education," said Momin Saqib, Brett ambassador.

Institutions, Retail Investors Drove Narrative Shifts, Countering VC Dominance

Besides community formation, Ryan, a core contributor of Goose.run, explained how memecoins create novel