- In July, Solana and XRP surged by 30.5% and 27.6% respectively, while the market capitalization rose by 6.1%.
- TVL in the DeFi segment increased by 3.5%, whereas NFT sales decreased by 7.14%.
- Binance maintained its lead in trading volumes among centralized exchanges, despite a decline in figures.
By the end of July, the price of Solana (SOL) had risen by 30.5%, and Ripple’s XRP had gained 27.6%, significantly outperforming other leading coins. This is according to a report by Binance Research.
The overall market capitalization increased by 6.1% over the month. Experts attribute this to several positive events, including:
- the German authorities completing the sale of 50,000 BTC;
- the SEC approving S-1 applications for nine spot Ethereum ETFs, which began trading on July 23;
- Donald Trump promising at the Bitcoin 2024 conference to create a strategic reserve in bitcoins if elected President of the United States.
However, concerns remained in the market regarding the commencement of Mt.Gox’s $9 billion payouts to victims of the 2014 hack and the U.S. government’s transfer of 29,800 BTC, analysts noted.
They believe Solana’s performance was largely driven by a 42.2% month-on-month increase in trading volumes on decentralized exchanges (DEX), reaching $54.6 billion, primarily due to meme coin trading. The average daily number of active addresses in the network hit a record 1.7 million, and daily transactions rose by 18.2% to 1.3 million.
“Positive sentiment around the ecosystem was bolstered by several events in the DeFi market, including the implementation of Jito restaking and the announcement of the Drift prediction market,” added Binance specialists.
The XRP rally began after CME and CF Benchmarks launched indices and reference rates for the asset, the report states. Investor confidence was further boosted by a statement from Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse regarding a potential resolution of the legal dispute with the SEC.
Tron (TRX) maintained positive momentum in July, gaining 9.8% and entering the top 10 coins by market capitalization, experts highlighted. The outlook for the cryptocurrency was buoyed by its founder Justin Sun’s announcement of a gas-free stablecoin development.
The month was not positive for all major digital assets — Ethereum’s price fell by 1.6% during the period. After trading began, ETH funds initially recorded a net outflow of $484 million, analysts indicated.
“Additionally, TON faced a 12.2% drop after strong results since March, although the blockchain ecosystem continued to grow thanks to the success of the Hamster Kombat game and other initiatives,” they wrote.
Divergent Trends in DeFi and NFT Segments
The total value locked (TVL) in the DeFi segment increased by 3.5%. This roughly aligns with the overall upward trend in the crypto market, Binance specialists noted.
Among protocols, Polymarket demonstrated significant TVL growth — the figure exceeded $387 million in July, up 614% from January.
TVL on the Symbiotic platform grew by 283% in July. This was driven by market interest in restaking and partnerships with well-known projects like Mellow Protocol, Lido, Ether.fi, Ethena, and Pendle. By the end of the month, the protocol had reached all pool limits, raising $1.2 billion since its launch in May.
Mellow Protocol’s figure increased by 69.6% thanks to the Modular Liquid Restaking Primitive initiative. It allows doubling the farming of reward points for future airdrops of both its own token and Symbiotic’s.
Other protocols showing notable growth included CORE (121.2%), Scroll (66.0%), and Mantle (30.9%).
NFT sales volume in July decreased by 7.14%, reaching $430 million. Leading in this metric were DMarket ($16.2 million) and DogeZuki ($13.9 million).
Significant volume growth was demonstrated by collections on Solana such as Monkey Business and Retardio Cousins, while NFT sales on Bitcoin and Ethereum saw a substantial decline, analysts noted.
They also highlighted Immutable’s figure, which grew by 75.68% thanks to the development of blockchain games, including the launch of Illuvium.
Binance’s 21% Trading Volume Loss Narrows Gap with Competitors
According to data from Colin Wu’s team, Binance maintained its lead among centralized exchanges (CEX) in trading volume with $336.8 billion, although it declined by 21% over the month.
Cex Data for July: The spot trading volume on major exchanges decreased by 9% MOM, with Cryptocom (+59%), Upbit (+26%), Gate (+21%) and Binance (-21%), Bitget (-18%), and OKX (-16%). Read more https://t.co/l2SCt6dwnh pic.twitter.com/gpSlN3AOp8
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 12, 2024
This allowed Bybit ($110.2 billion and -7%) and Gate ($90.5 billion and +20.9%) to significantly close the gap.
The most notable growth among leading platforms was demonstrated by Crypto.com (59%) and Upbit (26%).
In July, the spot trading volume on DEX relative to CEX reached a historic high, exceeding 14.3%.
In the decentralized exchange segment, Solana’s ecosystem surpassed Ethereum for the first time in total trading volume — $55.8 billion versus $53.8 billion.