May 2024 Public Chain Research Report Regulatory Adjustments and Market Trends

Author: [email protected]
Data Source: Public Chain Research Page
In May, the cryptocurrency market experienced significant regulatory and political developments. The approval of the preliminary application for a spot Ethereum ETF by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) boosted the market performance of Ethereum and its Layer 2 solutions. The Trump campaign team announced that they would accept cryptocurrency donations, signaling potential impacts on the market from the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Solana continued its strong growth momentum as it was adopted by more mainstream platforms such as PayPal. TON attracted a lot of attention due to Pantera Capital’s “largest investment to date” and the increasing on-chain TVL and activity.
The data in this report is sourced from the Public Chain Research page of Footprint Analytics. This page offers an easy-to-use dashboard containing the most crucial statistics and metrics in the public chain field, updated in real-time.
Cryptocurrency Market Overview
In May 2024, market dynamics were significantly influenced by major regulatory progress, with the SEC approving the preliminary application for a spot Ethereum ETF. This milestone event not only helped Ethereum stand out in the broader cryptocurrency market but also signaled a shift in regulatory support for cryptocurrencies.
Furthermore, political developments also impacted market sentiment. The Trump campaign team announced they would accept cryptocurrency donations, hinting at potentially far-reaching impacts on the cryptocurrency market from the upcoming U.S. presidential election, which could be comparable to adjustments in Federal Reserve monetary policy.
On the contrary, the ongoing resolution process of the Mt. Gox exchange bankruptcy case had a certain degree of restraint on the Bitcoin price. The exchange, which had been bankrupt for a decade, announced in September last year that the repayment to creditors would begin in October 2024, sparking concerns in the market about the potential impact of a large token sell-off.
Public Chain Overview
By the end of May, the total market value of public chain cryptocurrencies had increased by 10.5% compared to April, reaching $19 trillion. Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana led in market share, accounting for 62.9%, 21.4%, 4.1%, and 3.6%, respectively. It is noteworthy that Ethereum’s market share increased from 19.7% to 21.4%, while Solana rose from 3.1% to 3.6%.
In May 2024, Bitcoin rebounded strongly from its low point at the end of April, rising from $60,653 at the beginning of the month to $67,606 at the end of the month, a 11.5% increase. During the same period, Ethereum also showed a robust recovery, with its price rising from $3,011 to $3,778, a significant 25.5% increase.
Driven by broader trends in the cryptocurrency market, public chain cryptocurrencies recovered from their sluggish performance in April. In addition to Bitcoin and Ethereum, Solana’s market value grew by 34.5%, NEAR by 19.0%, and Avalanche by 14.8%.
Toncoin’s price increased by 23.0%, but its market value decreased by 14.6%. This was due to an update on May 30th by The Open Network (TON) on the circulating supply of Toncoin on the data aggregator, excluding a portion held by Telegram, TON Foundation, and TON Believers Fund. This update immediately led to a decline in Toncoin’s market value.
By the end of May, the overall TVL of public chains reached $872 billion, a 14.7% increase from April. Ethereum, Tron, and BNB Chain were leading in TVL. Particularly noteworthy was TON’s TVL, which surged by 106.4% in a month.
In May, Solana continued its upward trend, benefiting from ongoing meme coin popularity and significant developments. LayerZero integrated Solana into its cross-chain network, connecting it with seven chains: Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, Arbitrum, BNB Chain, Optimism, and Base, with plans to expand this network to over 70 blockchains. Additionally, PayPal chose Solana to expand its stablecoin PayPal USD (PYUSD), marking the company’s first foray into a public chain outside the Ethereum ecosystem.
TON also attracted significant attention. In early May, Pantera Capital, managing over $50 billion in assets, announced its “largest investment to date” in TON. Additionally, Telegram’s gaming robot projects such as Tapswap and Hamster Kombat gained popularity in the Notcoin craze, attracting more users to TON and driving an increase in on-chain activity. Development of Major Layer 1 Public Chains in May 2024
Bitcoin
Belrad IBIT broke records, becoming the fastest asset to reach $200 billion in ETF.
Animoca Brands announced its entry into the Bitcoin field through the OPAL Protocol.
Ethereum
Bloomberg analysts predict that the demand for spot Ethereum ETFs may reach 20% to 25% of spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Vitalik Buterin and other core Ethereum developers proposed the EIP-7702 proposal.
BNB Chain
BNB Chain announced four hard forks on the opBNB testnet, with gas costs on opBNB expected to decrease by 10x.
BNB Chain introduced a new trading volume incentive program.
NEAR
NEAR: The number of mainnet shards has increased from 4 to 6, further enhancing network performance.
NEAR announced the launch of a new R&D lab NEAR AI.
Sui
Sui denied allegations related to manipulating token supply.
Sui’s social login basic tool zkLogin added multi-sign recovery functionality and support for logging in with Apple accounts.
Polygon
PolygonLabs announced the use of SP1 to create a pessimistic proof for AggLayer.
Core Chain
Core DAO’s “Summer Game Contest 2024” started on May 20.
GalaChain
An unknown hacker attacked Gala Games’ internal control account, minting 5 billion new GALA tokens on May 20. The Gala Games team quickly discovered the attack and used their blacklist function to isolate the attacker’s address.
Layer 2
In May, the approval of the preliminary application for a spot Ethereum ETF by the SEC boosted the performance of Ethereum Layer 2. Arbitrum led the market with a 44.8% market share and 19.6% TVL growth. Optimism followed closely with a 22.2% market share and 13.1% TVL growth. Blast’s TVL grew by 22.3%, while Base increased by 27.2%.
Driven by its DeFi activity Linea Surge, Linea’s TVL surged by 82.9%, attracting more DeFi enthusiasts and significantly increasing TVL on the network. Manta Pacific’s TVL increased by 17.4% due to the successful launch of the new product Manta CeDeFi, which provides rewards from both CeFi and DeFi earnings.
Development of Major Layer 2 Public Chains in May 2024
Arbitrum
Uniswap: Arbitrum became the first Layer 2 to surpass $150 billion in total trading volume on a DEX.
Injective plans to launch its own Layer 3 network inEVM based on Arbitrum Orbit.
Optimism
The Optimism team welcomed Layer 3 to join Superchain, building on the OP Stack and sharing revenue with the Optimism Collective.
Starknet
StarkWare announced the launch of the extended framework ZKThreads based on ZK-executed sharding.
Blast
Blur launched Blast, offering Blast Points and 2 million GOLD rewards.
Taiko
Taiko went live on the mainnet on May 27.
Rootstock
Rootstock founder: Bitcoin’s programmability may emerge within 12 months.
Merlin Chain
Merlin Chain announced that all assets of Merlin’s Seal can be unlocked.
Blockchain Games
In May, a total of 1,525 games remained active across multiple blockchain platforms, with BNB Chain, Polygon, and Ethereum holding 23.3%, 19.7%, and 15.7% market share, respectively, leading the market.
Among the 3.3 million daily active users in May, Ronin, Polygon, and NEAR continued to lead, similar to the previous month. Ronin remained dominant with around 29.0% market share. NEAR’s share increased from 12.1% at the beginning of May to 14.8% by the end of the month. Flow also showed growth, with its share rising from 0.7% to 3.3%. On the other hand, BNB Chain’s share declined from 8.0% to 5.9%.
On May 24, the Arbitrum community initiated a vote on the 200 million ARB Game Catalyst Plan, which will end on June 8, with the aim of strengthening the gaming ecosystem on the network. At the time of writing this report, the proposal had received majority support, with a support rate of 80.6%. Meanwhile, Arbitrum is developing a Layer 3 game-specific chain ecosystem, and the multi-chain NFT game ecosystem Polychain Monsters announced the launch of a Layer 3 game-specific chain based on Arbitrum Orbit through Altlayer.
Starknet Foundation granted 2 million STRK funding to the blockchain metaverse game Realms.World, as part of its strategy to enhance the Starknet game ecosystem by distributing 50 million STRK tokens announced in March.
The classic football game “Captain Tsubasa,” developed by the mobile game giant KLab Inc.’s subsidiary Mint Town Co., Ltd. and BLOCKSMITH&Co., officially launched on Oasys in May. Oasys is actively seeking further collaboration with Mint Town and other developers to integrate high-quality intellectual property (IP) into blockchain games.
For more data, see the May Blockchain Game Report: “May 2024 Blockchain Game Research Report: Market Value Growth, Player Participation Changes, Rise of Mini Games.”
Public Chain Investment and Financing
In May, there were a total of 17 financing events in the public chain sector, with a total financing amount of $89.7 million, a 14.3% decrease from the previous month. However, seven of these financing events did not disclose specific financing amounts. Notably, Pantera Capital announced an investment in TON, calling it the “largest investment to date.” Previously, Pantera’s largest investment was $250 million, used to purchase Solana at a discounted price from the bankrupt FTX exchange.
In the blockchain infrastructure sector, technological advancements continued to be a focus, attracting the attention of many investors. A notable technological advancement was the integration of real-world assets (RWA) into crypto applications. In May, Layer 1 blockchains E Money Network and Ethereum Layer 2 Plume Network successfully raised new rounds of financing, aiming to integrate their networks with RWAs.
Humanity Protocol was another noteworthy case, raising $30 million at a valuation of $1 billion. The company focuses on developing a blockchain-based identity system that uses palm scanning technology to verify individual identities, aiming to provide verification services for online identities in an era dominated by deepfake AI technology. This financing event quickly propelled Humanity Protocol into the unicorn company ranks, achieving this milestone in less than a year.
Interestingly, defining Layer 2 explicitly as Bitcoin or Ethereum’s Layer 2 is becoming increasingly challenging as many Layer 2 solutions support scalability across multiple chains. For example, Lumoz, as a modular computation layer and ZK-RaaS platform, simplifies the use of ZK-Rollup and promotes its wider adoption. The platform supports multiple networks, including Ethereum, Bitcoin, and BNB Chain, among others.
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This content is for industry research and communication purposes only, and does not constitute any investment advice. The market carries risks, and investments should be made with caution.
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