After nearly breaching all-time highs in 2024 Q1, the total crypto market cap returned some of those gains in Q2, “dropping -14.4%, closing at $2.43 trillion in June,” the team at CoinGecko noted.
2024 Q2 brought Bitcoin’s long-anticipated fourth halving, which “went off without a hitch,” the report from CoinGecko added.
As explained the research report, each halving ushers in “what crypto natives consider a new era, though the market response to the event was largely muted.”
After the exuberance in Q1 following the approval of the US spot Bitcoin ETFs, Q2 proved “to be pretty choppy for Bitcoin and the crypto market as a whole,” the CoinGecko report added.
But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an eventful quarter.
CoinGecko’s comprehensive 2024 Q2 Crypto Industry Report “covers everything from the crypto market landscape to analyzing Bitcoin and Ethereum, deep diving into the decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (NFT) ecosystems, and reviewing how centralized exchanges (CEX) and decentralized exchanges (DEX) have performed.”
CoinGecko has recapped the key highlights:
- Total crypto market capitalization dropped -14.4% in 2024 Q2, outperformed by the S&P 500 (+3.9%).
- Bitcoin fell -11.9% in 2024 Q2, ranging between $58k – $72k, just below its all-time high of $73k.
- Bitcoin mining hash rate declined -18.8% in 2024 Q2, its first quarterly decline since 2022 Q2.
- The top 15 CoinGecko categories in 2024 Q2 were Meme Coins, AI and RWA, accounting for 77.5% of web traffic.
- Ethereum added 120.8K ETH to its supply, as emissions outpaced burns
- Spot trading volume on centralized exchanges (CEX) hit $3.40T in 2024 Q2, a drop of -12.2% from 2024 Q1.
- Spot trading volume on decentralized exchanges increased +15.7% to hit $370.70B, due to a surge in meme coins and airdrops.
As mentioned in the report, “after Bitcoin hit a new all-time-high of $73,098 in mid-March, it oscillated between the $58,000 – $72,000 levels.”
Ultimately, it ended the quarter with “a -11.9% decline, with the fourth bitcoin halving not having any notable impact on price.”
Bitcoin trading volume also declined “throughout 2024 Q2 to a daily average of $26.6 billion, a -21.6% decline from the previous quarter.”
The quarter ended with market participants “being spooked after being alerted that Mt Gox started moving its stash of 140K BTC, while the German government started selling its stash of seized Bitcoin.”
Bitcoin mining total hash rate fell by -18.8% in 2024 Q2, “after reaching an all-time high of 721M TH/s on April 23, 2024.”
This marks the first down quarter for bitcoin’s hash rate since 2022 Q2.
Despite the drop in mining hash rate, the industry has seen “a flurry of developments. Companies such as BitDigital, Hive, Hut 8, Terawulf, and Core Scientific expanded or are looking to expand into AI.”
Meanwhile, Tether announced “a $500 million investment into the mining sector, and Block finished development of its 3nm mining chip.”
In 2024 Q2, the top 10 decentralized exchanges (DEX’s) “recorded $370.7 billion in spot trading volume. This represents an increase of +15.7% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), with DEXes having benefited from a surge in meme coins and the many airdrops throughout Q2.”
Uniswap remained the dominant DEX, “ending June 2024 with a 48% market share. However, DEXes in the bottom rungs of the top 10 have been challenged by the likes of Thruster and Aerodrome.”
Thruster, native to Blast, saw volumes “rise 464.4% ($6.0 billion) QoQ, ending June with a 3% market share. It was the largest gainer in Q2.”
Meanwhile, Aerodrome was the second largest gainer, “growing 297.4% ($5.9 billion), entering the top 10 with a 3% market share. Thruster benefited from Blasts points farming, while Aerodrome had a surge in meme coins trading on Base.”
CoinGecko provides a fundamental analysis of the crypto market.
In addition to tracking price, volume and market capitalisation, CoinGecko “tracks community growth, open-source code development, major events and on-chain metrics.”