Frontier Lab Crypto Market Weekly Report｜W47

17 min readNov 24, 2024

Market Overview

Summary of Major Market Trends

Overall Market Trend

This week, the cryptocurrency market generally showed an upward trend, with the market sentiment index remaining in the “greed” phase, reflecting investor optimism regarding future price movements. As Bitcoin (BTC) continued to set new highs, market activity significantly increased.

Altcoin Performance

Altcoins saw widespread gains this week, following the broader market trend and benefiting from the positive sentiment surrounding cryptocurrencies. Increased confidence in the market led to a general rise in Altcoin prices.

DeFi Project Highlights

The DeFi sector performed notably well, attracting significant inflows of capital. The Total Value Locked (TVL) of multiple DeFi projects experienced substantial growth, particularly for projects based on the Sui and Solana blockchains. This reflects continued investor focus on foundational yield, with increased participation in liquidity provision and lending activities.

Meme Coin Dynamics

The meme coin sector saw a decline in activity this week, with funds gradually shifting towards the DeFi space. Although meme coins had attracted attention from investors in the short term, the market sentiment is now turning towards more practical DeFi projects, resulting in a capital shift back into these sectors.

BTCFi Sector Dynamics

The BTCFi sector showed lackluster performance. Despite the rise in BTC’s price, liquidity staking projects based on BTC did not significantly benefit, resulting in a divergence in TVL. Some projects showed weak TVL growth, possibly due to users migrating to larger-scale projects for greater asset security.

Market Liquidity

Market liquidity gradually increased, with the market capitalization of stablecoins steadily rising, signaling continuous capital inflows. The TVL of DeFi projects also showed sustained growth, reflecting investor confidence in the market.

Long-Term Investment Confidence

As institutional recognition of the crypto market increases and the regulatory environment improves, investor confidence in long-term investments continues to strengthen. The market generally expects more capital inflows in the future, accelerating the development of the crypto ecosystem.

Market Sentiment Index Analysis

The market sentiment index has risen to 82%, up from last week’s 60%, indicating that the market is currently in the “greed” phase.

This week, Altcoins followed the overall market trend and experienced widespread gains. The crypto market is still in a FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) driven rally. As institutions, the SEC, and the U.S. government gradually adopt a more open stance toward the crypto market. Users are generally optimistic about their future development. This growing confidence has contributed to the widespread rise of Altcoins this week.

The market is currently setting new price highs. Although market sentiment has improved from last week, it remains in the “greed” phase, suggesting that, while the market may experience short-term adjustments, there is still significant room for price growth in the future.

Overall Market Trend Overview

The cryptocurrency market followed an upward trend this week, with the sentiment index remaining in the “greed” phase.
DeFi-related crypto projects performed notably well, demonstrating the market’s continued focus on improving foundational yields.
Meme coin projects experienced a pullback this week, as market attention and capital, after taking profits, began to shift towards DeFi projects.

Hot Sectors

Sui Ecosystem

This week, the Sui ecosystem gained significant attention on the market. While the meme coin projects within the Sui ecosystem saw a slight decline, the market shifted its focus and capital towards DeFi projects on the Sui blockchain.

Sui Blockchain DeFi Project Data

TVL: Sui’s Total Value Locked (TVL) grew rapidly this week, rising from $1.385 billion last week to $1.662 billion, a growth of 16.94%. This indicates a strong influx of capital into the Sui blockchain.
New Accounts: The number of new accounts on the Sui blockchain saw a significant increase this week, reaching 1.0863 million new accounts, a rise of 43.21% compared to last week. While the growth rate has slowed slightly, it remains at a high level, reflecting the strong traffic attraction of the Sui chain.
DEX Trading Volume: The major decentralized exchanges (DEXs) on the Sui blockchain are Cetus, Aftermath Finance, and BlueMove. Over the past 30 days, their trading volumes reached $59.38 million, $11.54 million, and $7.98 million, respectively, with growth rates of 167.98%, 101.78%, and 146.17%. This shows a very high growth rate in trading activity on the Sui chain.
DeFi Project TVL Growth: The top three DeFi projects by TVL in the Sui ecosystem are NAVI Protocol, Suilend, and Aftermath Finance, which belong to the lending and DEX sectors. Their TVL growth rates this week were 21.92%, 8.83%, and 81.29%, respectively. This indicates that capital is increasingly flowing into DeFi projects within the Sui ecosystem.

To determine whether a public blockchain is favored by the market, the most direct indicator is the change in its TVL. Based on the above data, we can conclude that the Sui blockchain is experiencing rapid development. As the price of SUI has risen significantly, the underlying assets of the Sui ecosystem have continued to increase, driving the growth of APYs for its DeFi projects. This, in turn, has attracted a large number of on-chain users, further accelerating the development of the entire Sui ecosystem.

Solana Ecosystem

Solana gained attention this week as several asset management firms filed applications for a SOL spot ETF with the SEC. The SEC has started engaging with ETF issuers, and with SEC Chairman Gary Gensler preparing to leave in January, the market has become more optimistic about Solana’s future. As a result, the Solana ecosystem was heavily discussed this week. The meme coin projects within the Solana ecosystem saw a decline in interest, while DeFi projects experienced rapid growth.

Solana Blockchain DeFi Project Data:

TVL: Solana’s TVL grew rapidly this week, increasing from $7.323 billion last week to $8.787 billion, a rise of 16.65%. This indicates a strong influx of capital into the Solana blockchain.
New Accounts: The number of new accounts on the Solana blockchain also saw a significant increase this week, reaching 17.66 million new accounts, a growth of 23.16% compared to last week. This reflects a continuous influx of users into the Solana ecosystem.
DEX Trading Volume: The main decentralized exchanges (DEXs) on Solana are Raydium, Jupiter, and Drift. Their daily trading volume over the past 30 days grew significantly, with growth rates of 211.13%, 112.71%, and 108.64%, respectively. This indicates a rapid increase in trading activity on the Solana blockchain, highlighting the influx of users participating in DeFi activities.
DeFi Project TVL Growth: The top three DeFi projects by TVL in the Solana ecosystem are Jito, Kamino, and Raydium, which belong to the liquidity, lending, and DEX sectors. Their TVL growth rates this week were 22.12%, 17.55%, and 22.81%, respectively. This shows that capital continues to flow into DeFi projects within the Solana ecosystem.

From the rapid growth in TVL within the Solana ecosystem, it is clear that the Solana blockchain is in a period of high-speed development. With SOL’s price breaking historical highs, and potential changes in the SEC’s stance on Solana, such as no longer classifying it as a security and approving a SOL spot ETF, the enthusiasm of users in the Solana ecosystem has been greatly boosted. The rising SOL price has also led to the growth of APYs in Solana’s DeFi projects, which now generally exceed those on Ethereum. This has attracted a large number of users to participate in the Solana ecosystem.

DeFi Sector

TVL Growth Rankings

The top 5 projects by TVL growth over the past week (excluding projects with smaller TVL, with a minimum threshold of $30 million). Data source: DefiLlama.

Aftermath Finance (Unlaunched Token) (Recommendation: ⭐️⭐️)

Project Overview: Aftermath Finance is a decentralized exchange (DEX) built on the Sui blockchain. In addition to spot trading, it also supports the creation of liquidity for advanced products and has launched perpetual contract trading on the testnet.
Latest Developments: This week, Aftermath Finance partnered with Bitgo to enable SUI-based LST-afSUI tokens for custodial services via Bitgo. Additionally, Aftermath launched the DCA (Dollar-Cost Averaging) test version, allowing users to perform regular investments to minimize risk and maximize long-term returns. With BTC continuing to break new highs, market trading sentiment was boosted, leading to increased trading frequency on the DEX.

SaucerSwap (SAUCE) (Recommendation: ⭐️⭐️)

Project Overview: SaucerSwap is a decentralized exchange built on the Hedera blockchain. It not only supports standard trading functions but also offers a premium service called SAUCE Pro, which allows users to access advanced features by subscribing with the SaucerSwap protocol token, SAUCE.
Latest Developments: This week, SaucerSwap launched the Epoch 27 event, rewarding liquidity providers on SaucerSwap V2 with 157,441.90 HBAR tokens. Additionally, the token HLQT is being distributed to users who provide liquidity to HLQT. As the largest DEX in the Hedera ecosystem, SaucerSwap has handled nearly all the DEX trading volume on Hedera. With the rise in on-chain trading this week, more Hedera users have entered SaucerSwap to participate in trading.

Liqwid (LQ) (Recommendation: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Project Overview: Liqwid Finance is a liquidity staking lending protocol built on the Cardano blockchain.
Latest Developments: This week, the price of Cardano’s native token, ADA, surged rapidly, making it one of the few projects able to keep pace with BTC. As a result, Cardano users have become more reluctant to sell their ADA tokens, but are also seeking to increase leverage to earn more from the current market rally. Many users have chosen to stake ADA to earn liquidity. As the largest lending protocol on Cardano, Liqwid saw a noticeable increase in borrowing and lending volume this week. With increasing demand for capital, APYs for lenders also began to rise, attracting more depositors. No new major developments or activities were reported for Liqwid this week.

Overnight Finance (OVN) (Recommendation: ⭐️)

Project Overview: Overnight Finance is an asset management protocol that provides passive yield tools. It focuses on creating proprietary, delta-neutral on-chain yield strategies for stablecoins, aiming to generate sustainable returns through high-quality protocols such as Aave and Uniswap V3.
Latest Developments: Overnight Finance recently approved a new buyback plan, using 80% of the project’s revenue to buy back OVN tokens. This week, they repurchased over 24,000 OVN tokens. Additionally, the platform distributed OVN tokens to users to boost their APY, adding 9,000 OVN tokens per week on top of the existing APY.

DeSyn Protocol (DSN) (Recommendation: ⭐️⭐️)

Project Overview: DeSyn Protocol is a decentralized asset management platform built on the Ethereum blockchain, offering a comprehensive suite of financial products to maximize the potential of investor capital. These include derivative synthetic assets, leveraged staking ETFs, yield-earning funds, real-world asset (RWA) funds, and custom strategies.
Latest Developments: Recently, DeSyn Protocol has partnered with multiple public blockchains, including Core and AILayer, to expand its ecosystem and improve accessibility. They have also optimized and deployed a Restaking product, integrated point rewards, and automated airdrop distribution. Additionally, the mainnet has been fixed and updated to address key performance issues, improving platform stability and functionality. This week, DeSyn Protocol launched Epoch 2 voting activities, rewarding participating users with 25,000 DSN tokens.

This week, the projects with the fastest TVL growth are primarily concentrated in the DEX and liquidity pool sectors.

Overall Sector Performance

Stablecoin Market Cap Growth

USDT increased from $132.6 billion last week to $135.4 billion this week, reflecting a 2.11% rise.
USDC grew from $36.7 billion to $37.7 billion, a 2.72% increase. This shows that both non-US-market-focused USDT and US-market-centric USDC experienced growth this week, indicating a significant inflow of new capital into the market.
Liquidity on the Rise: As traditional market risk-free arbitrage rates continue to decline due to sustained rate cuts, the arbitrage rates of on-chain DeFi projects are increasing due to the rising value of cryptocurrency assets. Returning to DeFi has become an attractive choice for investors.
Capital Movement: The total value locked (TVL) of DeFi projects rose from $43.3 billion last week to $45.2 billion this week, a 4.38% increase. This steady upward trend over the past few weeks highlights a consistent inflow of funds into DeFi projects.

The total value locked (TVL) of DeFi projects rose from $43.3 billion last week to $45.2 billion this week, a 4.38% increase. This steady upward trend over the past few weeks highlights a consistent inflow of funds into DeFi projects.

In-Depth Analysis

Driving Forces Behind Growth

This week, BTC and ETH, the two foundational crypto assets, showed strong upward momentum. BTC reached new all-time highs, and market participants became increasingly optimistic about the future price trends of both BTC and ETH. This optimism has strengthened their resolve to hold these assets. As asset values increase, investors are more actively participating in DeFi projects, enabling them to earn additional returns while holding their original assets.

Top Growth Leaders: For DeFi projects, TVL growth is the most direct indicator of performance. Based on the TVL leaderboard, projects with significant growth this week are primarily DEXs and yield optimization (auto-compounding) projects.

Yield Optimization Projects: These projects help users maximize returns while holding their assets.

DEX Projects: The rise in asset prices this week has fueled trading enthusiasm among users. Many participated in on-chain trading to gain higher profits, leading to a rapid increase in trading volumes and TVL for DEX projects.

This activity reflects heightened market sentiment, suggesting that DEX projects, as an indispensable part of on-chain activity during a bull market, will likely continue to grow alongside rising prices and sentiment.

Investors should focus on yield optimization projects that enhance user profitability and DEX projects that capitalize on increasing trading volumes and market activity. These sectors are poised for significant growth in the current market environment.

BTCFi Sector Update

This week, the broader crypto market saw a general uptrend, with BTCFi projects following suit. However, the BTCFi sector’s overall performance was less prominent. Among these, projects focused on liquid staking of BTC to mint liquid staking tokens (LSTs) showed mixed results. A notable trend emerged: polarization in TVL, where projects with higher TVL experienced growth, while those with lower TVL saw declines.

Sector Highlights

BTC Price Surge: BTC increased by 8.51% this week. Adjusting for BTC’s price rise, the TVL performance of key BTCFi projects was as follows:

Bedrock: +16.74%
Lombard: +2.91%
Lorenzo: -0.63%
Pell Network: +3.96%
PumpBTC: -27.72%
Solv Protocol: +4.64%
Stakestone: -6.81%

Bedrock

Introduced uniBTC/wBTC pools on Velodrome and RamsesExchange, offering 1896% and 1662% APY respectively, attracting significant liquidity.
Launched Get Goated Season 2, providing 1 million IOTX rewards and 3x Bedrock points for participants.

Lombard

Partnered with ether.fi to launch a campaign: staking eBTC within 14 days grants $2M in ETHFI rewards and 4x Lux rewards.
Added Pendle support for PT-LBTC, enabling APR optimization via collateral.

Solv Protocol

Collaborated with Pendle to offer 50% additional Solv points for YT-solvBTC holders.
Introduced SolvBTC.JUP, leveraging Solana’s Jupiter Exchange to implement a CeDeFi strategy for BTC yield, marking Solv’s entry into the Solana ecosystem.

Lorenzo Protocol

Partnered with Bitgit to enable BTC staking via the Bitgit Web3 wallet, offering 1 million Lorenzo points and a 20% point bonus.
Collaborated with Perp DEX Rolldex to enhance stBTC liquidity and leverage.
Adjusted USD stablecoin lending rates in partnership with Avalon Labs, increasing fixed rates from 7% to 8%.

PumpBTC

Collaborated with Modus and Equilibria to increase APY for PumpBTC holders. Equilibria offers a 9% APY, alongside 4x Pump points and 1x Babylon points as incentives.

Pell Network

Partnered with Core to launch a testnet with incentives like Core Ignition Sparks and Pell airdrop points.
Upgraded BTC restaking with Babylon, introducing decentralized service mechanisms for BTC holders.

Stakestone

No noteworthy updates or announcements this week.

Sector Insights

Uneven Growth: Despite BTC’s rapid price increase, the BTCFi sector did not experience proportional growth. TVL performance diverged, with high-TVL projects growing while smaller projects declined.
User Behavior: A possible explanation for polarization is user preference for transferring assets to more established projects for security reasons.
Underwhelming BTC-L2 Performance: BTC-L2 projects remained stagnant, failing to capitalize on BTC’s price surge.

Conclusion

The BTCFi sector’s mixed performance highlights the need for closer monitoring. Projects issuing BTC-backed LSTs showed resilience but did not uniformly capitalize on BTC’s price rally. Future tracking and analysis of user migration and sector polarization will be critical to understanding this emerging trend.

Other Sector Performance

Public Chains

Top 5 Public Chains by TVL Growth Over the Past Week (Data Source: DefiLlama)

Hedera

Coinbase 50 Index Inclusion: Hedera (HBAR) has been added to the Coinbase 50 Index, reflecting market recognition of its potential.
Focus on RWA Development: The Hedera Governing Council announced support for Real-World Assets (RWA) projects on its blockchain.
ETF Speculation Boosts Sentiment: Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store, tweeted that SOL, XRP, and HBAR might see spot ETF applications alongside Grayscale and Bitwise crypto index funds. This news spurred positive market sentiment.
TVL Growth: HBAR’s rising price catalyzed rapid growth in the TVL of Hedera-based projects like SaucerSwap and Stader, with an average increase of over 80% this week.

Cardano

Regulatory Optimism: Charles Hoskinson, Cardano’s founder, expressed willingness to collaborate with a Trump-led U.S. government on cryptocurrency legislation. This sentiment, coupled with rumors of direct talks, boosted Cardano’s price significantly.
SEC Controversy Resolved?: Previously flagged as an unregistered security by the SEC, market optimism about a lenient regulatory stance under a potential Trump administration has fueled rapid growth in projects previously under SEC scrutiny.

BOB

Bitcoin DeFi Collaboration with OKX: BOB partnered with OKX Web3 Wallet to promote Bitcoin DeFi activities. Users completing tasks such as bridging, staking, and lending within the BOB ecosystem via OKX are eligible for rewards from a $300,000 prize pool.

SUI

Shift from Meme Tokens to DeFi: Following last week’s strong performance, SUI’s ecosystem saw a transition from meme token activity to significant DeFi project growth. This indicates a retention of capital within the ecosystem despite the cooling meme coin hype.
Stablecoin and Infrastructure Developments: Stablecoin FDUSD launched within the SUI ecosystem. Oracle aggregator Switchboard deployed on SUI.
Technical Incident and Recovery: A brief network outage on Thursday was swiftly resolved by the SUI team, showcasing their technical competency.

Solana

Record Market Cap: Solana continued its strong performance, reaching new market cap highs.
DeFi Growth Amid Meme Token Decline: While Solana’s meme tokens faced downturns, its DeFi projects maintained high growth rates. Solana’s on-chain transaction volume surpassed Ethereum, making it the top-performing public chain this week.
Stablecoin Expansion: Solana introduced USDS, issued by Sky Protocol, adding $81.6 million in liquidity within 24 hours.
ETF Progress: Asset management firm Bitwise filed for a Solana-related ETF in Delaware on Tuesday.
Ecosystem Expansion: Messari launched a dedicated website for the Solana blockchain, further reinforcing its ecosystem’s visibility and credibility.

Key Takeaways

Hedera and Solana are experiencing strong ecosystem development, driven by ETF speculation, institutional interest, and technical advancements.
Cardano’s growth highlights the impact of shifting regulatory sentiment on blockchain assets.
SUI demonstrates resilience by retaining ecosystem capital, transitioning from speculative trends to sustainable DeFi growth.
BOB continues its focus on Bitcoin DeFi with user-centric campaigns.

These developments suggest that DeFi and ecosystem growth are central themes, with stablecoin adoption and ETF progress being critical catalysts for blockchain sector performance.

Top 5 Tokens by Growth in the Past Week

(Excluding tokens with low trading volume and meme coins. Data Source: CoinMarketCap)

This week’s gainers show a clear trend in the public blockchain space, with many projects seeing growth, especially those focused on RWA, potential regulatory developments, and ecosystem advancements.

OM (Mantra)

Mantra is a vertically integrated blockchain ecosystem that offers DeFi services, focusing on the tokenization of Real World Assets (RWA). This week, the project saw a surge in value after BlackRock expressed optimism about the RWA sector. As one of the leading projects in this area, OM’s growth was further fueled by its listing on Perp DEX, which boosted its visibility and market engagement.

HBAR (Hedera)

Hedera, a blockchain built on Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) technology, has gained significant attention this week. Its inclusion in the Coinbase 50 Index signals broader market recognition, and the Hedera Council’s announcement of support for RWA projects further strengthens its position. Additionally, potential spot ETF applications for SOL, XRP, and HBAR, as noted by Nate Geraci, sparked positive market sentiment, driving the price of HBAR upwards.

XLM (Stellar)

Stellar, a blockchain focused on facilitating payments between cryptocurrency and fiat currencies, has also experienced growth this week. After rumors surfaced about potential collaboration with the Trump administration on crypto regulation, XLM benefitted from the broader “anti-SEC” sentiment, seeing a price increase in line with XRP, which has been similarly affected by regulatory issues.

CSPR (Casper)

Casper, a public blockchain project built on the CBC Casper specification, is preparing to launch significant updates. This week, Casper announced the upcoming release of its Casper 2.0 version and the Casper Liquid Staking program. These developments are expected to broaden the use cases for CSPR tokens and provide further empowerment to the Casper ecosystem, driving its market growth.

VIRTUAL (Virtuals Protocol)

Virtual Protocol, a project centered around AI agents, has made strides with the launch of Agentstarter, a new tool for deploying AI agents. This development positions the project as an innovative player in the AI and blockchain space, allowing users to create, deploy, and profit from AI-driven agents, potentially expanding its user base and increasing its ecosystem activity.

Meme Token Gains Ranking

This week, the popularity of Meme projects has declined, with Meme tokens across various blockchains experiencing varying degrees of price drops. As a result, funds have started flowing into DeFi projects on these blockchains.

Social Media Hot Topics

Based on the data from LunarCrush and Scopechat, the most frequently mentioned theme this week (11.16–11.22) was Layer 1 (L1) blockchains, with the following insights:

Based on the data analysis, the Layer 1 blockchain projects received the highest social media attention this week, showing an overall upward trend that outperformed the broader market. Meme coin projects across various public blockchains experienced a decline, while on-chain users shifted their attention and capital to decentralized finance (DeFi) projects. As the overall cryptocurrency market prices increased, the APY offered by DeFi projects rose rapidly, leading to an increase in the TVL and trading volumes of these projects. This trend reflects an optimistic sentiment among investors regarding the future market conditions.

Overall Market Themes Overview

PayFi Sector: In the PayFi sector, XRP, BCH, and XLM had a large market share, with their respective shares being 70.89%, 10.69%, and 7.93%, accounting for a total of 89.51%. This week, XRP, BCH, and XLM performed exceptionally well, rising by 53.51%, 12.76%, and 91.92%, respectively. XRP and XLM saw significant increases mainly because they were previously under intense SEC regulation, and with Trump’s potential victory, the market expects relaxed SEC oversight, driving up prices substantially. Although other smaller projects had significant growth as well, the overall performance of the PayFi sector was outstanding.

CeFi Sector: The CeFi sector is dominated by BNB, LEO, and CRO, with their market shares being 82.01%, 7.49%, and 4.43%, respectively, making up a total of 93.93%. This week, BNB, LEO, and CRO saw changes of -2.38%, 12.13%, and 8.21%, respectively. The decline in BNB’s price, which holds the largest share, and the relatively smaller increases in LEO and CRO, led to the smallest overall gains for the CeFi sector.

Next Week’s Crypto Events

Tuesday (Nov 26): STRK staking goes live on the mainnet.
Wednesday (Nov 22): US October Core PCE Price Index Year-over-Year; Digital Asset Management Solutions Day.

Outlook for Next Week

This week, the Crypto market saw a broad rally, driven by BTC continuing to hit new highs. As the SEC loosens its regulations on the crypto market, institutions continue to increase their BTC holdings, and with the Trump administration’s friendly stance on crypto, the market is expected to continue its upward trend next week. As investors take profits from BTC and the market’s FOMO (fear of missing out) sentiment grows, attention will shift toward new market assets, further driving the market’s broad rise.

In the DeFi space, particularly for DEX, lending, and liquid staking protocols, the performance of DEX projects is largely driven by market trading enthusiasm. As long as the FOMO sentiment and trading interest persist, DEX project trading volumes will continue to rise, fueling their growth. Lending and liquid staking protocols will benefit from the rising value of underlying assets, as the essence of DeFi projects is arbitrage, and as the value of crypto assets increases, DeFi arbitrage opportunities also rise, attracting more investors seeking higher returns.

It is also important to note that new asset issuance methods have historically been a key catalyst for large price increases in the crypto market. Past methods such as ICO (Initial Coin Offerings), IEO (Initial Exchange Offerings), INO (Initial NFT Offerings), IDO (Initial DEX Offerings), and even minting have all contributed to rapid market development and price surges. We should keep an eye on new projects using innovative asset issuance methods in the coming period.