ZKsync Saw Significant Growth in Q4 2024, Fueled by Stable Tokenomics and Strong Market Confidence

Its market cap increased by 35% to $676 million, while the token price went up from $0.14 to $0.18.

Key Takeaways

* Zksync saw significant growth in Q4 2024, fueled by stable tokenomics and strong market confidence. Its market cap increased by 35% to $676 million, while the token price went up from $0.14 to $0.18.

* The absence of token unlocks in Q3 and Q4 helped propel this upward momentum considerably. Its relative ranking, however, dropped from 121 to 126, as there was competition in the general market.

* A significant upcoming event is the first token unlock, which will take place in June of 2025. This will distribute 124 million ZK ($25 million) to the team and 132 million ZK ($27 million) to investors, with the vesting process starting immediately for the next four years.

* The team will have control over 16.1% of the supply, while investors will have ownership of 17.2%. Over 10 billion tokens are still in the hands of the ZkSync Foundation and the Token Assembly, with portions becoming liquid after governance mechanisms are activated.

Network Activity and EIP-4844 Impact

There was a significant drop in network activity during Q4, mainly due to the absence of incentives following the airdrop. Daily transactions dropped 42% to 141,800, and daily active addresses declined 63% to 41,400.

However, the number of new addresses remained the same, with only a 2% decrease, indicating that new users continue to join the network. EIP-4844 significantly affected the cost of transactions. The proposal, introduced late in Q1, massively lowered Layer 2 fees by 100 times.

This led to an 88% quarterly reduction in total transaction fees from Q1 to Q2. For Q4, the average transaction fee went up slightly by 65% to $0.04 but still remained significantly lower than pre-EIP-4844 levels.

In ZK, the average fee rose by 26% to 0.25 ZK. The transaction success rate, though, did not change and stayed at 97%.

SyncSwap Leads Zksync DeFi with $23.7M TVL

DeFi in Zksync expanded moderately, with the total value locked (TVL) increasing by 9% to $97.1 million. Measured in ZK, the TVL dropped by 19% due to the price movement. SyncSwap led with the largest TVL of $23.7 million, representing a 24% market share.

Next up was Venus with $12.1 million, up 20%, while Aave saw its 261% increase to $10.9 million. The number of top DeFi protocols on Zksync rose slightly to 14, which shows ecosystem growth.

Decentralized exchange volumes declined by 14% to $13.2 million per day. Maverick regained the leading spot with a daily volume of $2.8 million, followed by PancakeSwap, which fell to second place with a daily volume of $2.7 million.

The stablecoin market was relatively stable, falling by just 1% to $63.5 million. USDC dominated with an 87% market share, and newcomer USDT reached $7 million, or 11%. Stablecoin adoption will stabilize as the ecosystem matures.