The Block predicts that Sei and NEAR will emerge as “Solana killers”, with no revival of avatar-style NFTs.

The Block Research’s Analysts: 2024 Predictions

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The Block Research Consensus Predictions
George Calle
Steven Zheng
Eden Au
Brandon Kae
Abraham Eid
Carlos Guzman
Jaiden Percheson
Simon Cousaert
Arnold Toh
Marcel Bluhm
Mohamed Ayadi
Rebecca Stevens
Jae Oh Song
Edvin Memet
Florence Kuria
Atharv Deshpande
Kevin Peng
Lars Hoffmann
Edvinas Rupkus
Ian Devendorf
Afif Bandak
Shamel Tejani
Brad Kay
John Dantoni

The Block Research Consensus Predictions
Due to the analysts having the same predictions, the following items will be removed from their individual predictions in this article:
Bitcoin spot ETF will be approved in the first quarter of 2024.
Coinbase will perform strongly, benefiting institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies.
The general expectation is that cryptocurrency prices will rise in 2024 due to the risk environment.
Bullish narratives: Real World Assets (RWA), decentralized infrastructure, and AI.
Upgrades like proto-danksharding/EIP-4844 will increase the adoption of Ethereum Rollup-based L2.

George Calle
Cryptocurrency market capitalization and major cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, and SOL) will appreciate in the risk environment of 2024 and generally outperform stocks and tech industry indices.
Investors will shift towards more promising competitive coins, and BTC dominance will start to fluctuate.
Integration of AI will benefit the development of DePIN sector.
COIN will continue to be the strongest crypto stock; Circle may IPO, but its performance will be relatively lackluster.

Steven Zheng
Solana’s and Sei Network’s recovery, along with the launch of parallel EVM chain Monad, are expected to result in two parallel L1 chains in the top ten market capitalization.
Coinbase’s market capitalization will reach $5 trillion.
Ethereum ETF will not be approved.
Decentralized computing power becomes a new narrative due to AI hype.
Two meme coins will enter the top ten market capitalization, excluding stablecoins and wrapped assets.
NFTs will experience a revival due to airdrops from a few projects.
Ordinals will account for 25% of Bitcoin miners’ revenue in 2024.

Eden Au
Bitcoin spot ETF is a “sell the news” event based on price trends.
ETH’s future performance will surpass BTC; COIN’s performance will surpass BTC.
Celestia (TIA) will stand out due to extreme community enthusiasm.
Not optimistic about the short-term impact of Dencun upgrade on L2; Arbitrum One and OP will still be mainstream L2s.
Re-collateralization protocols will attract a significant amount of ETH liquidity.
The prediction market will revive due to the presidential election.
Derivative DEXs will be the most progressive exchanges due to improved user experience and market recovery.
Illuvium will give rise to the “GameFi season.”

Brandon Kae
At least one AI project will enter the top ten market capitalization by the end of the year.
ETH/BTC will rise, but there will be no golden cross.
Telegram trading bots will further enhance user experience and remain popular despite risks.
At least one NFT project will surpass BAYC in market capitalization and launch its native token.

Abraham Eid
Security tokenization will become a focus, and crypto-native infrastructure will receive significant funding from traditional finance.
The biggest innovation in DeFi will still be in integrating with RWA.
DePIN projects such as computing power and bandwidth will emerge, offering more competitiveness than traditional players.
Projects integrating AI and cryptography will receive substantial funding, but the technology is still immature.

Carlos Guzman
Bitcoin spot ETF is more of a “sell the news” event.
Weak economic conditions in the first half of the year will lead the Federal Reserve to signal interest rate cuts, resulting in a cryptocurrency rebound in the second half.
Solana’s hype will fade, with BTC dominance still prevailing in the first half of the year, followed by a sharp drop in BTC market share after the halving.
Aptos, Sui, Sei, Solana, Monad, and NEAR will become the focus as competing L1 chains.
Privacy-focused smart contract platforms like Aztec, Aleo, and Mina will be major topics throughout the year, overshadowing USDT and USDC in the face of increasing competition for stablecoin yields, which will also affect TRON’s leadership in low-cost transfers and impact USDT.
2024 will be a big year for hacking attacks, with major security incidents occurring in mainstream L2s.

Jaiden Percheson
Another sovereign country will adopt Bitcoin as a fiat currency.
AI combined with blockchain will be one of the most speculated topics in 2024.
ETH/BTC will not hit a new high, but ETH will experience significant gains due to upgrade expectations and ETF approvals.

Simon Cousaert
Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology will be widely adopted by many projects, resulting in more private transactions.
Re-staking models will experience another DeFi boom.
Arnold Toh
Cosmos adoption will rival that of Ethereum, Solana, and other major L1 chains.
L2 adoption will continue to surge, with some starting to merge or fade away.
Ethereum will lack new DeFi narratives, making re-collateralization the main narrative, with EigenLayer being the center of the narrative.
Play-to-earn will no longer be practical, and players will focus on trading in-game NFTs.

Marcel Bluhm
Solana’s market capitalization will reclaim a top-three position, challenging Ethereum’s dominance.
By the end of the year, the market capitalization will be lower than the beginning of the year.
The first blockchain game to attract traditional gamers will emerge.
The US president will dismiss Gary Gensler.

Mohamed Ayadi
L2 chains will see significant growth, with only a few L2s achieving comparable on-chain activity levels to L1.
RWA and related protocols will continue to grow but at a slow pace due to regulatory factors.
Polkadot, Cosmos, and other Layer-0 projects will continue to develop, but their attention will be lower compared to emerging modular blockchains.
Solana will be on par with BTC and ETH, becoming a mainstream and secure asset.
Rebecca Stevens
More types of traditional financial elements will enter the blockchain, leading to increased adoption of tokenized real-world assets.
L1 and L2 will start to eat away at Ethereum’s market dominance.
A large number of profile picture NFTs will not experience a revival, but game NFTs will be more popular than art NFTs.

Jae Oh Song
Bitcoin ETF may be a “sell the news” event, but the downside will not last long.
NFT games and infrastructure may be more attractive for funding, as they are more practical.
Solana will become the mainstream L1 narrative, and competing chains will seek interoperability with Solana.
Ethereum spot ETF will also drive the prices of Polygon, Arbitrum, and OP.

Edvin Memet
Project teams may transition from airdrops to liquidity mining seen during the DeFi season, especially when more accurate witch detection is developed.
Meme coin market capitalization will increase from the current $25 billion to over $75 billion.
ETH may outperform BTC, and L2 may not surpass ETH.
A new narrative “Solana killer” will emerge, with Sei and NEAR being the main contenders.
New competitors will enter the Telegram bot space.
NFT projects like Pudgy Penguins, closer to mainstream, will thrive.

Florence Kuria
Meme coins like SHIB will flourish under community-driven development on their own chains.
Older meme coins like DOGE will lose market share, and investors will pay more attention to emerging meme coins like BONK.
Atharv Deshpande
Cryptocurrencies will outperform the stock market, excluding COIN.
ETH will not surpass BTC, and SOL will not surpass ETH.
The launch of the Bitcoin spot ETF will bring calm to the market.
By the end of 2024, meme coin market capitalization will surpass $50 billion. Another unicorn meme coin will emerge after BONK.
L1 chains will continue to dominate, but the market capitalization of L2 and meme coins will keep increasing, reflecting the diversity and continuous development of the crypto landscape.

Kevin Peng
Solana will continue to recover and become the third-largest blockchain by market capitalization.
AI will become a strong narrative, giving rise to numerous new protocols.
The cryptocurrency gaming industry will continue to mature, laying the foundation for future growth.
Lars Hoffmann
The focus will shift to Ethereum ETF in the first half of the year.
After May, the focus will return to Bitcoin, Bitcoin meme coins, and DeFi ecosystem.
The FTX lawsuit will drag on for a long time.
Hong Kong will become more open in crypto policies to offset its financial losses in recent years.
New users will embrace Solana and competing chains rather than Ethereum.
Modular blockchains will also fail to bring meaningful economic activity to Ethereum.

Edvinas Rupkus
Price trends and overall on-chain activity in 2024 will be similar to 2021.
If the main theme of 2021 was public chains and “Ethereum killers,” the main themes of 2024 will be L2 and modular blockchain solutions.
Intense interactions among users of major public chains will lead to significant security incidents in cross-chain bridges.
More countries will follow El Salvador’s lead and adopt Bitcoin.
The dePIN sector and applications like Helium are highly anticipated, and their prices will drive adoption.

Ian Devendorf
BTC dominance will reach around 70% in the first half of the year.
Competitive coins will outperform L2 and mainstream public chains (Solana, Near, Aptos, Sui, etc.), and BTC market share will sharply decline in the second half of the year.
Lending protocols and stablecoins will benefit from a high-interest-rate environment and continued integration with real-world assets.
Stablecoin business models will remain popular, with more companies launching stablecoins, but they will struggle to challenge USDT’s market dominance.

Afif Bandak
Parallel EVM chains will be one of the main narratives in 2024.
Liquidity staking and staking will remain the mainstream DeFi narratives.
Shamel Tejani
Airdrops will be the biggest FOMO in 2024, not ETFs or sudden coin surges.
With progress in Ethereum ETF and Dencun upgrade, the focus will return to Ethereum.
DEX trading volume will increase relative to CEX.
Bitcoin will experience a 25% drop sometime in the first half of 2024.

Brad Kay
Ethereum will remain the leading chain for NFTs, followed closely by Bitcoin and Solana.
The development of BRC20 exchanges will completely transform the Bitcoin ecosystem, similar to how Blur transformed NFTs.

John Dantoni
Venture capital funding will soar.
Bitcoin ETF will bring new capital to the crypto space.
Solana will continue positioning itself as the primary competitor to Ethereum, attracting significant funding.
Emerging technologies like RWA, DePin, and SocialFi will compete for market share, and Solana will become the incubation protocol for related applications.
Market forces and increasing miner revenue will force Bitcoin maximalists to accept Ordinals and BRC20.

RWA
SOL
Solana
Ethereum ETF
Decentralized infrastructure
Bitcoin spot ETF