Crypto 2024: Community Culture, Stable Cryptocurrency Adoption and Artificial Intelligence

While the “State of Crypto 2024” report published by A16Z Crypto last week sheds light on the rapidly developing dynamics of the crypto world, I find a few important points in the report particularly worth talking about. The data in the report reveals how, in addition to technological advances and adaptation, the crypto world is shaped through communities, cultural structures and geographies, and how it finds new areas of use. Let’s look at the details together:

1. Solana and Base: The Power of Community Culture

The first striking point of the report is that Solana and Base blockchains stand out with both the number of active addresses and their popularity among project developers. The total number of active addresses on the two networks (120 million) accounts for almost half of all active addresses (220 million). Beyond their technical advantages, one of the most important elements underlying the success of these two networks is culture and community building.

Solana and Base have created ecosystems that are in constant interaction with their users, virtually living 24/7. While Solana offers an entertainment and profit dynamic based on meme culture, Base has created a unique culture by focusing on creative expressions, NFTs and gamification. Having a strong technology or a large marketing budget alone does not bring success in crypto projects.

The important thing is that users feel a part of this ecosystem and that this community can turn into a culture.

While Solana’s speed and user-friendly interfaces create natural interactions within the community, Base differentiates itself as a platform that encourages innovation, especially with its support for creative projects. In other words, sustainable success in the crypto world depends on the ability to create an organic community with technology.

2. The Rise and Use of Stable Cryptocurrencies

Stable cryptocurrencies (stablecoins) have gained an important place in the market. There are several main reasons why stablecoins such as USDT and USDC have become so widespread and reached a market share of $180 billion: low transaction fees, fast transfers and the possibility of seamless peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers anywhere in the world. This is one of the problems that blockchain technology aims to solve in the first place.

Especially in developing countries, stable cryptocurrencies offer a low-stakes solution in foreign exchange transactions and are used in countries such as Nigeria, Argentina, Turkey, etc., where traditional financial systems cannot reach or have problems. It creates an important opportunity for sectors. At the same time, the flexibility they offer in the DeFi ecosystem also makes stablecoins attractive. The returns, collateral and borrowing solutions provided through stablecoins in DeFi protocols contributed to these currencies being accepted as “smart money”. Likewise, volumes on forecasting platforms such as Polymarket have exceeded billion dollar levels due to the impact of the US elections. Looking at all these developments, we can say that stable cryptocurrencies are beginning to become not only a gateway from traditional finance to crypto, but also an indispensable part of a new financial system.

3. Low Activity in Gaming and NFTs: Hype and Facts

In 2021-2022, web3 games (GameFi) and NFTs experienced a huge boom. However, the hype behind this boom gave way to a decline over time. According to the latest data, the number of daily active addresses in the gaming and NFT sectors is quite low. Volumes have fallen almost 6 times in the last 2 years. So why?

Blockchain-integrated games and NFTs have attracted users with promises of high returns. But this hype was often unsustainable due to inaccurate token economies, poor game designs, and projects copying each other. Users quickly moved away from these platforms after the bull market ended.

However, these areas were not completely abandoned and games such as Pixels managed to reach 1 million active players in 2024. In order for users to return, the quality and entertainment level of the games must increase. Games must be as attractive and user-friendly as traditional games, and NFTs must create real uses not only in the field of art and creativity. NFTs need to be considered not just as an investment tool, but as a technology that redefines digital asset ownership.

However, new scaling solutions such as rollup technology in Ethereum and Scalable L1 networks may help these areas gain renewed traction in the future. Considering the place of the concepts of ownership, interoperability and transparency in the Web3 world, these two categories still have great potential.

4. Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the biggest technological breakthroughs of recent years and, as in many industries, it plays an important role in the crypto world. According to the A16Z report, artificial intelligence integration is increasing, and while 27% of crypto projects used artificial intelligence solutions last year, this rate increased to 34% this year. So, is this trend sustainable, or is artificial intelligence a trend that will fade away?

The answer to this question is hidden in the real benefits that artificial intelligence offers in terms of efficiency, speed and productivity. We know that, thanks to artificial intelligence integration, developer productivity increases by 20%, while costs in production processes decrease by up to 15%. For crypto developers, artificial intelligence offers significant advantages in project development processes. For example, artificial intelligence-supported analyzes and automated processes increase development speed and increase efficiency. It finds a wide range of uses for developers, from coding to marketing, planning and revenue mechanisms. For individual users, artificial intelligence has the potential to make crypto platforms more accessible and user-friendly. Additionally, artificial intelligence training costs are increasing rapidly, and crypto may develop alternative ways to counter the centralization trend in this field.

Artificial intelligence is not just a trend, it is a technology with a multi-year development process. It will continue to increase its impact both in daily life, in the business world and in the investment field. Therefore, artificial intelligence will continue to be at the center of crypto projects as a sustainable innovation, not just a short-term wave of popularity.

In conclusion;
The advancement of the crypto ecosystem is directly related not only to technological innovations, but also to how communities and cultures are built.

The combination of these dynamics emerges as the fundamental elements that will determine the future success of the sector. Another point that is particularly noteworthy is that crypto usage is reaching higher levels than ever before. The number of monthly active addresses has reached an all-time high with 220 million. This growth is occurring at a pace similar to adoption rates in the early days of the internet and demonstrates how rapidly the crypto ecosystem is expanding globally. You can view the full report here.