Sadia Ali

NFT Market Hits Rock Bottom in 2024: Worst Year Since 2020

dApp, DeFi, NFT

NFTs

The NFT market faced its weakest year since 2020, with trading volumes and sales dropping sharply.

DeFi dominated 2024, driven by memecoins and innovation, capturing 32% of market activity.

Bitcoin’s record-breaking performance and regulatory progress fueled optimism for the crypto industry.

    The NFT market bottomed in 2024, recording its worst trading volumes and sales since 2020. It saw a fall of 19% in the number of traders, with the sales count falling by 18%. This further reflects a general disinterest in high-priced NFT, even as platforms like Blur stick to market domination via zero-fee trading and airdrop campaigns.

    Source: Dappradar

    While NFTs had to fight for relevance, the industry started to talk about utility and not price tags. The shift has marked a wider understanding that, for NFTs to thrive in the Web3 ecosystem, they must offer value beyond simple collectibility.

    DeFi Leads Dapp Growth

    DeFi, or Decentralized Finance, was undoubtedly the highlight of the year, as it came out as the star sector in 2024. Activity surged by 532% to reach 7 million daily active wallets and claimed a 32% market share in Q4 2024. The current wave of memecoin mania has also created an added momentum to attract users and fuel growth on DeFi platforms.

    Source: Dappradar

    New chains were one of the main drivers of this activity. opBNB became the most used chain with 3.88 million daily active wallets, while Solana’s TVL surged 2,000% to become the second-largest chain after Ethereum. The industry’s TVL reached $214 billion, which is close to its peak in 2021.

    Transformative Year for Crypto

    This has been a transformative year for the dapp industry, as the daily unique active wallets grew 485%, reaching an average of 24.6 million. It signals the general rise in the adoption of decentralized applications across all verticals. On the other hand, the “Other” category, in which AI-driven dapps lead, recorded an astonishing activity growth of 2,269%.

    Source: Dappradar

    The regulatory progress also helped shape the landscape: from Europe’s MiCA framework, which set a profound foundation for industry compliance, to renewed U.S. interest under the leadership of Donald Trump that hinted at institutional adoption. Bitcoin’s fresh high extended the market’s bullish sentiment and probably signaled the beginning of a new growth cycle.

    Despite the successes, the industry had its losses, including $1.3 billion lost to hacks and exploits, which was a 31% decrease compared to the previous year. These setbacks have brought to the fore the need to improve security as the sector matures.

    Source: Dappradar



    With 2024 closed out, it’s clear that the year was setting out huge leaps ahead of time. Moving from the independence of DeFi through the lessons taken away from NFTs, we go into 2025 ready to continue evolving in the industry of crypto.

    Related Reading : Bitcoin’s Market Shakeup: What’s Behind the Bold $170K Prediction?

    Sadia Ali

    Sadia Ali