Crypto Trends 2024 (H2) — What Accelerators Have Been Investing In
Introduction
2024 has been a transformative year for the crypto industry, with some major developments and trends shifting and changing. The SEC gave the green light to spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January, sending Bitcoin’s value soaring to a new all-time high and drawing renewed attention to crypto markets. At the same time, Ethereum’s proto-danksharding upgrade cut Layer 2 transaction costs significantly, which has helped to boost blockchain adoption more widely. More and more people are using mobile wallets and there are now more active crypto addresses than ever before. This growth is being driven by countries like Nigeria, India and Argentina, which shows that crypto is becoming more and more popular around the world.
Meanwhile, regulatory advancements, including the implementation of the EU’s MiCA framework and growing acceptance of crypto ETFs, are paving the way for increased clarity and mainstream participation. As Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Stablecoins, and Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) become increasingly prominent, the rise of Zero-Knowledge Proofs and Account Abstraction lead to greater scalability, adoption and UX improvements.
To gain insight into the current trends in the crypto market, this post will provide a quick overview of the general builder activity in 2024 and subsequently will give an analysis on some cohorts of crypto accelerators in the second half of 2024.
Builder Activity in 2024
To gain a deeper insight into the current trends, it is valuable to examine the builder activity and see the breakdown of the areas where the projects are being built. To illustrate this, an analysis of builder activity as outlined in the a16z State of Crypto Report 2024 was used.
Methodology: To measure builder activity according to sectors, they apply the categories of (i) Blockchain Infrastructure [e.g., L1, L2, Interoperability, Oracles, etc.], (ii) Decentralized Finance (DeFi) [e.g., Lending, Payments, Derivatives, RWAs, etc.], (iii) Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) [e.g., Bandwidth, Energy, Computing Power, etc.], (iv) Decentralized Science (DeSci) [e.g., Research Funding, Ownership of IP, Tools for IP, etc.], (v) Gaming [e.g., Games, Infrastructure, etc.], (vi) Media [e.g., Music, Writing, Sports, etc.], (vii) NFT Infrastructure [e.g., Marketplaces, Minting, Physical Redemption, etc.], (viii) Picks & Shovels [e.g., Node Providers, Fiat On-Ramp, Developer Tools, Enterprise Software, etc.], (ix) Social [e.g., Social Network, Messaging, Groups, etc.], (x) Wallets & Identity [e.g. Consumer Wallet, Wallet Infrastructure, Identity Tool, etc.], and (xi) Other [Healthcare Applications, Enterprise Blockchains, Funds, etc.].
As shown in the graph below, it can be seen that DeFi and Blockchain Infrastructure account for the majority of builder activity, together accounting for approximately 44%. These numbers can be confirmed by the CV Labs Accelerator statistics we gathered over the course of 2024, where these two categories add up to 47%. For the remaining categories, we can also confirm that builder activity is fairly evenly split, with Social and Wallets & Identity also being among the ‘bigger’ categories with shares of between 8% and 10%, while DePIN, Gaming, Social, NFT Infrastructure, Media are all around 5% and DeSci around 1%.
What Crypto Accelerators Have Been Investing in 2024 (H2)
An alternative perspective on the latest crypto trends is offered when considering the investment patterns of crypto accelerators in the second half of 2024. Thus, some of the best known and longest standing crypto accelerators were taking into account, namely a16z CSX, Alliance, CV Labs Accelerator and Orange DAO (there are also many other great crypto accelerators). These investment patterns may offer insights into potential trends in 2025–2026.
It is important to note that different investors have different preferences and areas of expertise, and that these numbers are based on a qualitative assessment of which category a startup belongs in. Many of them could also very well fit into another category. Furthermore, it needs to be emphasized that this analysis is not to be understood as investment advice and that the opinions expressed are my own. Furthermore, it should be noted that, due to the relatively limited number of startups in each cohorts (a16z CSX: 21 | Alliance: 11 | CV Labs Accelerator: 9 | Orange DAO: 16), these figures may fluctuate and lack statistical reliability.
Methodology: The same categories as outlined above were applied to the cohorts. In addition, as it has emerged as a prominent theme, Decentralized AI (DeAI) [e.g., Agent, Coordination Layer, Data, etc.] was added as an extra category.
a16z CSX
As illustrated in the chart below, the a16z CSX cohort is primarily comprised of Blockchain Infrastructure and Picks & Shovels, representing over 50% of the total. Additionally, DeAI represents a significant investment focus, followed by DeFi.
Alliance
The Alliance cohort comprised numerous companies operating within the Gaming sector, followed by DeFi and a selection of individual investments across other verticals.
CV Labs Accelerator
The most recent cohort of the CV Labs Accelerator comprised primarily of startups operating within the DeFi and DeAI domains, while the remaining categories exhibited a more balanced distribution.
Orange Dao
An analysis of the most recent cohort of Orange DAO reveals that the two largest categories are DeFi and DeAI, while the remaining categories exhibit a relatively even distribution.
A comparison of the different accelerator cohorts reveals that the largest categories are DeFi and DeAI, followed by Blockchain Infrastructure. However, it should be noted that the majority of Blockchain Infrastructure investments originated from the a16z CSX cohort. The next largest categories are Picks and Shovels, Gaming, and Social, DePIN and Media, which are distributed evenly across the sectors.
When comparing these numbers to the overall builder activity for 2024, it is clear that the DeAI narrative has gained momentum. DeFi and Blockchain Infrastructure are still going strong, but the numbers are a little lower than for overall builder activity. On the other hand, the Gaming narrative picked up slightly, also driven by Alliance. There were more investments in Picks & Shovels and Media, while there was a bit less investment in Social. It is harder to compare the smaller sectors because the numbers are low, but there were fewer new startups accelerated in Wallets & Identity and none in NFT infrastructure. DeSci remains a smaller narrative.
What Were the Big Narratives and Buzzwords of 2024 (H2)?
It gets more interesting when we look at the individual investments and see which themes the accelerators were pushing in H2 2024.
This section therefore outlines some of the ‘buzzwords’ of the sectors in which the projects are currently active. Lately, there has been a lot of attention towards programmable cryptography (ZK, FHE, MPC). One of the hottest topics in H2 2024 has definitely been Zero Knowledge Transport Layer Security (zkTLS). If you want to learn more about zkTLS, you can read my blog post here. Another big topic in privacy-enhancing technologies has been Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). Yet, there were not many investments in these cohorts; maybe because it is still a very nascent technology and for the few deals, valuations were skyrocketing.
Of course, Decentralized AI has been on the agenda of many accelerators and thus Data, Agents or Compute. The DeAI Map of Topology offers a good overview of the sector. In order to improve the user experience when using blockchains, there were also some investments in Chain Abstraction, Intents, AI Agents or Smart Account enabled applications. Given the surge of Prediction Platforms and Memecoins, there have also been investments around that and in combination with Gaming. DeFi mainly included Payments, Lending and On-Ramps.
(Pre-)Seed Topics to Watch Out For in 2025
For H1 2025, I expect continued interest in investments in Blockchain Infrastructure (Scalability, UX improvements through Chain Abstraction, Account Abstraction, Intents, AI Agents), more investments in DeFi / OpenFi, improvements in programmable cryptography (ZK, MPC, FHE) and continued interest in DeAI. Besides, DeSci was definitely a much-discussed topic at Devcon SEA.
My hope is that we will see more mainstream applications emerge in 2025. There is still a lot to do on the infrastructure side, but we are now at an inflection point where the first killer applications (stablecoins/payments) have found their product market as transaction fees have dropped dramatically. That said, there are still a few other areas where we need to make improvements, such as scalability, latency, interoperability, user experience, privacy and developer tooling.
I anticipate that there will be notable advancements in the convergence of crypto, augmented reality, and neurotechnology. Additionally, there will be a rise in innovations related to zkTLS and FHE.
What do you think will be the next big thing? Let me know what you are building and apply for the CV Labs Accelerator: https://www.cvlabs.com/accelerator
Acknowledgements: This article expands upon the research presented in a16z state of crypto report 2024 and media releases by a16z, Alliance, CV Labs & Orange DAO.
