The hottest Web3 narratives slowed down in 2024, replaced by AI, DeSci, and memes

Memes, AI, and DeSci were the fastest-gaining narratives, taking over crypto social media. The recent trends replaced older talk of Web3 infrastructure.

Almost the entire narrative of 2024 shifted to a new set of crypto projects. The former leaders of Web3 growth were virtually displaced by a different set of social media narratives. Social media narratives do not necessarily correlate with price action, but may show a focus on currently active and speculative token groups.

The stablecoin narrative expanded by more than 93%, as it was linked to the recovery of DEX trading, lending, and centralized markets. Both Tether (USDT) and crypto-backed or synthetic stablecoins expanded in the past year, peaking at more than 200.2B tokens. Stablecoins were closely tracked as a proxy metric for market sentiment.

Talk of Data Availability, or DA layers, is down by more than 94% based on Kaito’s mindshare tracking. The hype over EigenLayer mostly dissipated after its airdrop seasons in the first half of 2024. Data availability quickly turned into a solved problem and a background issue for Web3, as the biggest Data Availability layers divided up the market.

Account abstraction was the other issue that got silent in the past 12 months. Most apps found ways to integrate wallets seamlessly. Account abstraction was more related to gaming and metaverse use cases, where projects aimed to onboard regular users.

However, Web3 wallets proved sufficient, especially when using Solana through Phantom. Account abstraction also hinged on using cross-chain apps, which did not really expand in the past year. The related narrative, GameFi, also shrank its mindshare by more than 42%. The metaverse narrative similarly shrank by more than 46%, despite the efforts of Animoca Brands to revive the theme and launch its Mocaverse.

The L2 narrative lost 58.72% of its mindshare, as most tokens in that space slid. L2 chains also carried limited traffic, with the exception of a few top networks.

One narrative to slow down from mainstream mentions was the crypto-related ETF. Mentions of ETF have slowed down more than 63%, despite the undeniable effect of those funds on Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). The ETF narrative went to the background as most of the hype was based on speculation before the launch.

RWA mentions declined by more than 50% in the past 12 months.

AI tokens, DeSci show the biggest growth

The AI narrative was once again among the big gainers in mindshare. Social media mentions expanded by more than 116%, coinciding with the top earnings for AI-related tokens. The expansion of AI mentions on social media coincided with a growth in Google searches, accelerating in the last quarter of 2024. 

The biggest gainer in terms of mindshare is DeSci, with an expansion of 2,640%. One of the reasons is that DeSci was a niche type of token, which could not compete with the previous wave of projects.

DeSci became popular through Binance’s attention and the listing of the BIO token. Additionally, Vitalik Buterin has supported DeSci tokens. For now, DeSci tokens are a relatively small market, valued at $1.1B. The projects are yet to prove their qualities and research capabilities, and some tokens are also a subset of highly risky memes.

The activity of the DeSci narrative does not yet reflect the sector’s potential. Overall, mindshare is higher for up-and-coming trends, but slows down once the sector is more established.

In the past year, crypto narratives and themes expanded, going beyond the simpler narratives of Bitcoin (BTC) against altcoins. The expectation of an altcoin season in 2025 was also fulfilled for a very short period. The year passed without an overwhelming performance for smaller assets, though specific groups of tokens outperformed the rest of the market.

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