CoinNess reported:
In the second quarter of this year, the cryptocurrency market experienced significant price contraction. Among the top 50 tokens by market capitalization, only three recorded positive price performance during this period.
The report highlights that Solana performed the worst among the top five assets, with a value decline of about 31%. Bitcoin followed closely, dropping by 12%. Despite the potential for ETF development, Ethereum declined by approximately 6%. Meanwhile, Binance-supported token BNB performed the best, only dropping by 4%.
Toncoin Takes the Crown
Toncoin (TON) of the open network led the price performance among the top 50 tokens by market capitalization in the second quarter. According to the report, TON’s value surged over 40% in the past 90 days, ranking it eighth among the leading cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
During this period, daily activity on the TON network reached a new high, with its daily active addresses surpassing Ethereum at some point in the previous quarter. TON’s rapid rise is attributed to its collaboration with the social messaging app Telegram, which opened the door to cryptocurrencies for millions of mainstream users.
Following TON is the first-layer Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain Kaspa, whose native token KAS rose by about 41% during this period. The rise of KAS is linked to the largest Bitcoin mining company, Marathon Digital, which decided to mine tokens from PoW blockchains as part of its diversification efforts. Additionally, the list of the top three companies with the highest increases also includes the PEPE memecoin, which rose by 35% during the reporting period.
L1 and L2 Tokens Plummet
In the second quarter of 2024, most cryptocurrencies performed poorly across various asset classes. First-layer (L1) and second-layer (L2) tokens, as well as memecoins, experienced significant declines, highlighting the volatility of the crypto market.
The most severely affected were Ethereum L2 projects, such as Polygon (MATIC), Arbitrum (ARB), Optimism (OP), and StarkNet (STRK), whose native tokens fell by over 40%. Interestingly, even Bitcoin L2 network Stacks’ STX token plummeted by 53% during the reporting period. However, despite the overall downturn, these networks’ on-chain activity saw significant growth, indicating an increase in their adoption rates.
Similarly, the first-layer tokens of Sui Network (SUI), Aptos (APT), Internet Protocol (ICP), Avalanche (AVAX), Polkadot (DOT), and Cosmos (ATOM) also experienced significant price declines, with drops exceeding 50%.
However, this sharp decline is not limited to major cryptocurrency projects alone. Analysis of the top 5000 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization revealed that positively performing cryptocurrencies in the second quarter were extremely rare.