Use of crypto on the rise: good Solana and Tron

The use of crypto is booming, particularly with regard to some of these, like Ethereum, Solana, or Tron. 

A report published a couple of days ago by a16zcrypto reveals it.

The report on the use of crypto: Ethereum, Solana, and Tron lead the sector

The report is titled State of Crypto Report 2024, and contains a lot of information regarding the use and adoption of cryptocurrencies.

This is the third annual report by a16zcrypto on the adoption of cryptocurrencies at a global level, so much so that many things have changed since the first issue to today. 

At that time, cryptocurrencies were not at the top of policymakers’ agendas, whereas now the leading candidate for the presidency of the USA has even issued their own token. 

Furthermore, now there are spot ETFs on the US stock exchanges, and Ethereum has transitioned to Proof-of-Stake.

The report shows all these changes and analyzes the emergence of key applications such as stablecoins, and the intersection between crypto and other key technological trends such as artificial intelligence. 

The key points of the report: the record data of Solana and Tron

The report identifies seven key points:

1. The activity and use of cryptocurrencies reaching all-time highs
2. Cryptocurrencies have become a key political issue ahead of the US elections
3. The stablecoin have found a product-market fit
4. Infrastructure improvements have increased capacity and drastically reduced transaction costs
5. The DeFi remains popular and continues to grow
6. Cryptocurrencies could solve some of the most pressing challenges of artificial intelligence
7. A more scalable infrastructure has unlocked new on-chain applications.

In particular, it shows how the use and adoption of crypto at a global level have reached the highest levels ever. 

Ethereum, Solana, and Tron among the leaders in the growing use of crypto

The first data point that emerges is that in the entire history of cryptocurrencies, there have never been so many active addresses monthly. 

Last month, in fact, at least once, 220 million addresses interacted with a blockchain, a figure more than tripled compared to the end of last year. 

This explosion is mainly due to Solana, with about 100 million active addresses. 

Ethereum, however, remains in absolute terms the blockchain that attracts the largest share of total developer interest (20.8%), followed by Solana and Base. 

The number of monthly users of mobile wallets has also increased, reaching an all-time high in June at 29 million. 

The USA dominate, with the largest share of monthly crypto wallet users (12%), although this share has decreased in recent years. After the USA, there are Nigeria and Argentina. 

It is instead very difficult to estimate the actual number of people using cryptocurrencies, and according to the estimate by a16zcrypto, there could be 30 to 60 million active monthly worldwide. This is only 5-10% of the total number of 617 million cryptocurrency holders, so the vast majority of users seem to limit themselves to holding, especially in the short term. 

The Solana network 

Solana is the fastest growing blockchain overall, in terms of its usage. 

It is particularly so for the number of active addresses, which however does not necessarily correspond to the number of users, but it is still very advanced in terms of development.

On the other hand, already in 2023 Solana recorded a real boom in the crypto markets, something that already suggested a strong increase in usage and the number of users. 

It has not yet come to directly challenge Ethereum, except in terms of the number of transactions, given that the fees on Solana are much lower than the fees on Ethereum’s layer-1. However, the layer-2s on Ethereum, such as Base, are also growing significantly, with fees at levels similar to those of Solana. 

The Tron Ecosystem

Tron is now widely used, especially for transactions in USDT.

Also in this case, the difference is made by the fees, since exchanging USDT on Ethereum has much higher fees. 

USDT was born years ago on Omni, a sidechain of Bitcoin, but its use exploded when it also landed on Ethereum. 

The problem is that by now the fees on Ethereum’s layer-1 are too high for it to make sense to use it for low-amount USDT transactions, so the majority of these have been moved to Tron. 

Base among the layer-2 of Ethereum par excellence

The most mentioned Ethereum layer-2 in the report is Base, by Coinbase, which, despite not having its own token, is establishing itself as one of the most interesting in the entire crypto landscape. 

The reason for its success is always the very low fees and the very fast execution times. 

The growth of Base has been significant, also because being a recent project, it started practically from zero. 

On the other hand, behind Base is the American giant of the crypto markets, so it was more or less expected that it would be successful. 

In particular, it is precisely the stablecoins that make the most difference, in the current state, regarding the use of crypto instruments, and Coinbase is also behind the second stablecoin in the world, USDC by Circle. 

The other very active sector is DeFi, where among other things Base is carving out an increasingly important role, and where the three dominant chains are precisely Ethereum, Tron, and Solana. DeFi now represents 34% of daily active addresses.