We’ve compiled a list of the fastest-growing cryptocurrency and blockchain companies to watch closely in 2024.
This detailed exploration highlights the performance and growth metrics of the fastest-growing blockchain companies, providing insight into their overall developments in 2023. Last year’s growth put it on our list of companies to watch in 2024.
However, regulatory hurdles, market conditions, and security concerns can impact even the best prospects in the digital currency ecosystem.
The fastest growing blockchain company
Solana
With 2,500 to 3,000 developers developing innovative solutions by 2023, Solana was one of the fastest-growing blockchains in the previous year.
The platform has showcased its diverse and rich ecosystem through events such as the Solana Season Hackathon, Breakpoint Conference, and Solana Solstice Festival.
Solana’s token, SOL, recorded one of the biggest annual gains of 2023, soaring 920% from January to December 2023 to end the year above $100. Solana’s total fixed value (TVL) soared to a record high of $1.5 billion as 2024 began.
Solana DEX maintained strong performance, with trading volume exceeding $1 billion for eight consecutive months. The platform has also witnessed the emergence of many community-driven projects, such as Saga, which have proven their technical excellence and loyal and active user base.
Sui
Sui, a layer 1 blockchain created by former Meta engineers, has achieved an impressive valuation of $2 billion after securing $336 million in funding in September 2022. Sui’s mainnet launched in May 2023, leading to a surge in DeFi activity on the network.
Sui’s features, such as parallel execution and new consensus algorithms, allowed the protocol to reach a TVL of over $175 million by the end of 2023.
In addition to its technical achievements, Sui received mainstream attention last year, with a white paper from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in April 2023 highlighting the protocol as one of the blockchain networks that could enable scaling climate action.
Cardano
Cardano has stood out for its educational efforts, technological innovation, community engagement, operational reliability, and global outreach.
The Cardano Foundation has demonstrated its commitment to openness and accessibility by launching the Cardano Academy in December 2023 and launching tools such as Ledger Sync in November. Cardano marked its transition into the Voltaire era last year, leading to controversy and the Cardano improvement proposal CIP-1694.
Cardano Summit 2023 emphasized operational reliability, demonstrating the project’s continued development and potential as a reputable blockchain network.
Cardano’s native token, ADA, has also surged 25% over the past year.
The fastest growing cryptocurrency exchange
HTX (formerly Huobi)
HTX, previously known as Huobi, celebrated its 10th anniversary of operation with a rebrand last September. The exchange ranked third among the largest exchanges with a market share of 7.8% in September.
HTX Ventures has grown its portfolio to over 200 ventures covering various sectors including DeFi, NFT, SocialFi, GameFi, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Layer 1, and Layer 2 projects. It also demonstrated a holistic approach to supporting ecosystem partners by integrating incubation and research departments.
Upbeat
Upbit maintained second place among the largest centralized exchanges with a market share of 11.5%. It also saw unusual quarterly increases in trading volume and increased NFT activity at a time when other exchanges were experiencing significant declines.
NFT activity has increased on Upbit, with the IMX token, the native token of NFT platform ImmutableX, rising 35% in September 2023, with Upbit dominating volume growth. Upbit has also collaborated with various NFT projects such as CryptoKitties, CryptoPunks, and Axie Infinity.
One of the key reasons supporting the growth of HTX and Upbit could be the regulatory hurdles and lawsuits that Binance, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, has been facing since the third quarter of 2023.
The fastest growing DeFi companies and protocols
Uniswap
Uniswap, one of the largest DeFi protocols with over $4 billion in TVL, has shown remarkable performance in terms of trading volume and user growth.
With $454 billion in total trading volume and 2.89 million new wallets created in 2023, Uniswap accounted for the majority of DeFi trading volume last year. Strategic growth was highlighted by launching three new chains and introducing defi rail.
Uniswap, the world’s largest on-chain protocol, has demonstrated its dominance by processing over $1.5 trillion in transactions as of May 2023 and emerging as the top decentralized application (dapp) on the Ethereum network, significantly boosting liquidity and DEX volume.
MakerDAO
MakerDAO has introduced the endgame phase to become the first truly autonomous decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) powered by artificial intelligence.
With approximately $240 million in annual revenue and a shift in revenue streams, MakerDAO has demonstrated strength and flexibility in a rapidly growing market.
In December 2023, positive trends in the market saw the MKR token rise by an impressive 34%.
Pancake Swap
PancakeSwap has grown in many ways with the release of v3, Syrup Pools, and deflation measures. PancakeSwap recorded trading volume of $19.56 billion and TVL of over $2.3 billion as of December 2023.
PancakeSwap has launched several actions to acquire Ultrasound CAKE to create a thriving ecosystem with low inflation. These measures included gradually reducing CAKE’s availability, increasing its attractiveness, and increasing pricing consistency.
Fastest Growing Bitcoin Mining Company
marathon digital
Marathon Digital doubled its active fleet in six months last year to 17.7EH/s. In August 2023, miners mined an additional 5 EH/s hash rate, with 1,072 BTC and 7,378 BTC mined on a year-to-date basis at the time.
The total unrestricted cash and Bitcoin of $445 million as of August 31, 2023 demonstrates Marathon Digital’s commitment to growing operations and supporting the Bitcoin mining network.
iris energy
In October 2023, Iris Energy increased hashrate capacity by more than 25%, achieving 7EH/s. This comes after hashrate capacity surged to 5.6EH/s in June. Iris Energy aims for data center capacity of 10EH/s by early 2024, demonstrating bold plans for growth and environmental friendliness in the Bitcoin mining sector.
The BTC mining company acquired 8,380 T21 miners from Bitmain Technologies Delaware Limited in December 2023. The value of the mining rig was reported to be over $22 million.
password mining
In November 2023, Cipher Mining increased its hash rate by 6.5% compared to the previous month. The company deployed up to 70,000 rigs in November, mining 433 BTC.
According to the latest update, the company mined 465 BTC in December last year, a notable increase from November’s figures.
The fastest growing AI and big data company
render network
Render Network has leveraged AI and NFT capabilities to target the 3D rendering market. The company demonstrated its ability to adapt to a rapidly changing industry, with render tokens seeing an impressive 63% growth in Q3 2023 and rendering frames increasing.
Render Network uses AI to improve performance and add new NFT features.
Additionally, the Render Network’s native token, RNDR, has also surged 360% over the past year.
SingularityNET
SingularityNET continued to grow steadily in 2023 as AI and big data tokens took center stage. The company has hired a new AI chief to drive its innovation agenda. SingularityNET also saw a successful Cogito utility token launch and further marketing and support activities.
The company has completed Phase 2 of the AI-DSL project, making progress toward building a smart AI system. SingularityNET highlighted its impact on the AI field by winning the 2023 Crypties Award for AI Achievement in December.
The company also made progress through the second round of Deep Funding, a SingularityNET program that supported more than 80 promising AI proposals. This program demonstrated the company’s commitment to fostering creative AI solutions through its funding platform.
Akash Network
Akash Network’s native token, AKT, saw an incredible 1,200% gain in August, thanks to a series of updates. The company has improved its “supercloud” with several upgrades, making it easier for developers to use high-performance chips like the NVIDIA A100 and H100.
Additionally, the company has updated its multi-level token economy plan to reduce costs and increase the scale of computing resources, reflecting its vision of building a stable and effective ecosystem.
Akash Network has also received nominations, including Coinage’s Crypto Project of the Year, and recognition for its AI work, demonstrating its growing influence in both the cryptocurrency and AI spaces.
The company also integrated with SubQuery, enabling fast data indexing and demonstrating flexibility for new technologies. High demand for cloud computing to support large-scale language models and applications has led to record GPU rentals on Akash Supercloud.