CoinDesk Reports:
The cryptocurrency market experienced significant price contraction in the second quarter of this year, with only three of the top 50 tokens by market capitalization recording positive price performance during this period.
The report highlights that Solana performed the worst among the top five assets, dropping approximately 31% in value. Following closely behind, Bitcoin decreased by 12%, while Ethereum fell by around 6% despite potential developments in ETFs. Meanwhile, Binance-supported BNB token showed the best performance, declining by only 4%.
Toncoin Takes the Lead
Toncoin (TON) from the Open Network emerged as the top performer in price among the top 50 tokens by market capitalization in the second quarter. According to the report, TON’s value surged over 40% in the past 90 days, placing it eighth among leading cryptocurrencies by market cap.
During this period, daily activity on the TON network skyrocketed to new highs, with its daily active addresses surpassing Ethereum at one point in the previous quarter. TON’s rapid rise is attributed to its integration with the social messaging app Telegram, which opened the doors to millions of mainstream users to cryptocurrency.
Following TON closely is the Layer 1 Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain Kaspa, whose native token KAS saw an increase of approximately 41% during this period. The rise of KAS is linked to major Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital’s decision to diversify into PoW blockchain tokens as part of their revenue diversification efforts. Additionally, the list of top gainers includes PEPE memecoin, which rose by 35% during the reporting period.
L1 and L2 Tokens Plummet
In the second quarter of 2024, most cryptocurrencies performed poorly across various asset categories. Layer 1 (L1) and Layer 2 (L2) tokens, as well as memecoins, saw significant declines, underscoring the volatility of the crypto market.
The hardest hit were Ethereum L2 projects such as Polygon (MATIC), Arbitrum (ARB), Optimism (OP), and StarkNet (STRK), whose native tokens each fell by over 40%. Interestingly, even Bitcoin L2 network Stacks saw its STX token plummet by 53% during the reporting period. However, despite overall downturns, these networks saw significant on-chain growth, indicating increasing adoption rates.
Similarly, Layer 1 tokens of Sui Network (SUI), Aptos (APT), Internet Protocol (ICP), Avalanche (AVAX), Polkadot (DOT), and Cosmos (ATOM) also experienced substantial price declines, each falling by more than 50%.
However, this sharp decline was not limited to major crypto projects alone. Analysis of cryptocurrencies ranked in the top 5000 by market capitalization revealed that positively performing cryptocurrencies in the second quarter were exceedingly rare.
