According to the data highlighted by CoinGecko, the 2024 cryptocurrency market underscored massive growth in certain narratives. Among all the narratives, Artificial Intelligence (AI) led the pack with an astonishing 2,939.8% price gain year-to-date (YTD). After that, memecoins showed staggering returns of 2,185.14% YTD. Significantly, these two narratives are the outperformers of the year. They appeared to be the most profitable investments of the 2024.
CoinGecko Showcases Meteoric Rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in December 2024
This year ended with a powerful rally of artificial intelligence (AI), doubling its return from 1,598.1% to 2,939.8% in December. The rising popularity of the Virtuals Protocol ($VIRTUAL) drove this explosive growth of AI.
On December 9, memecoins led the market with its phenomenal gains by peaking at 3,211.4%. However, the interest faded in this narrative by the end of the year. This waned interest permitted AI to become the most profitable narrative of 2024 by surpassing memecoins.
Real-Word Assets (RWA) Exceeds, Making GameFi and Layer 2 Stumbled
The third place was secured by the real-world assets (RWA) narrative. It scored an average of 819.5% YTD return and throughout the year, experienced steady growth. Moreover, it showed a remarkable turnover in November by projects like MANTRA ($OM).
As per CoinGecko report, Other narratives also recorded remarkable gains like Layer 1 and DePIN. They showed 142.5% and 135.4% growth respectively while outperforming Bitcoin’s YTD return of 125.5%. After them, by showing its resilience, DeFi secured a 101.4% return but could not capture the high-growth appeal of AI and memecoins.
GameFi and Layer 2, in contrast to the above narratives, struggled to deliver value. They posted YTD returns of 14.7% and 20.7% respectively. Six out of the ten tokens of GameFi suffered 32.9% of losses while Layer 2 appeared as the weakest performer of the year. It underscored 20.7% of negative returns as the sector was fragmented by the growing number of projects.
The analysis by CoinGecko reveals the volatile and opportunist nature of the cryptocurrency market. AI and memecoins gained popularity and the rest were labeled as underperformers. It highlights the need for a strategic selection while choosing the narratives to attain maximum growth.
