Crypto market capitalization grew by 108% in a year

What’s new? In 2023, the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market grew by 108,1%, from $829 billion to $1,72 trillion, analysts at aggregator CoinGecko write in a final report. In Q4 alone, traders’ optimism due to the expectation of approval of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the US led to an increase in the index by $500 billion. The rate of the asset itself during this period rose from $26 918 to $42 220, and the total volume of trading in cryptocurrencies amounted to $10,3 trillion, up 53,1% quarter-on-quarter.

CoinGecko’s report

What else is known? Overall, the bitcoin exchange rate rose by 155,2% year-over-year, with the index adding 64,3% in Q4 alone, reaching its highest level since April 2022 at $44 004. At the same time, the average trading volume of the asset declined from the end of Q1 to Q3 until it reached $18 billion in Q4, adding 64%.

As for total cryptocurrency trading volume, it grew throughout the year, with the daily average in Q4 totaling $75,1 billion, adding 91,9% compared to the previous reporting period. However, the total daily trading volume was $58,9 billion, still 31,6% below the 2022 figures.

Notable changes in the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization include Solana (SOL), which moved up from seventh to fifth place, and Avalanche (AVAX): from 22nd to 11th. New entrants to the top 30 are Internet Computer (ICP) in the 21st, Injective Protocol (INJ) in the 29th, and Optimism (OP) in the 30th. Hedera (HBAR), Binance USD (BUSD), Monero (XMR), and True USD (TUSD) dropped out of the top.

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Ethereum (ETH) ended the year at $2294: up 90,5%. In this, the highest yield was recorded in Q1, when the asset added 49,8% and reached $1792. There was consolidation during Q2 and Q3, with the asset trading in a narrow price range, but then the asset added 36,3% in Q4, reaching a yearly high of $2376 in December.

Despite the implementation of the Shanghai upgrade in April, which allowed ETH to be unstaked, there were no significant price changes during this period. The average daily trading volume in 2023 remained relatively flat, except for Q4, which increased from $7,2 billion to $14,4 billion (+100%).

The trading volume of non-fungible tokens (NFT) on the top 10 networks in 2023 totaled $11,8 billion — only 44% of 2022 totals ($26,3 billion). Ethereum remains the dominant network, with 72,3% of total trading volume, down from 90% in 2022.

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Bitcoin and Solana networks were on the rise in Q4. In particular, the bitcoin network surpassed Ethereum in trading volume with $808 million in December, driven by the popularity of the Ordinals protocol launched earlier this year.