Data & Insights: Holiday Market Trends and Sui’s L1 Outperformance

Big Boi Blobs

• Celestia has experienced a significant and sustained increase in blob sizes over the past two weeks.
  • For added context, Celestia’s blob size can be interchangeably referenced as the number of blobs posted on Celestia.
  • Between June 20 and December 20, 2024, the average blob size on Celestia was approximately 1.18 GB.
  • Yet over the last two weeks, this figure has nearly tenfold in size, to an average of 11.4 GB.
• Similarly, daily transactions on Celestia have also witnessed a substantial rise during this period.
  • Using the same timeframe (June 20 to December 20, 2024), Celestia averaged around 44K transactions per day.
  • And over the last two weeks, this number has grown by over 60%, with a daily average of 71K transactions.
• The near tenfold increase in blob sizes is likely due to an NFT mint that occurred during this period, as well as more projects choosing to utilize Celestia as a data availability layer.
  • The NFT mint in question involved the Mammoth Overlord NFTs on the Forma blockchain, which utilizes Celestia.
  • Another example is RARI chain’s decision to integrate Celestia on 23 December 2024.
  • It is worth pointing out that almost the entirety of the blobs posted on Celestia in this heightened period over the last 2 weeks have been due to Eclipse, an Ethereum layer 2 blockchain that utilizes a Solana virtual machine and Celestia as its data availability layer.
• Interestingly, from the time Celestia’s blob size first experienced a spike on 23 December, the market capitalization of TIA has increased by roughly 14% to the time of writing.
  • TIA’s market capitalization currently stands at $2.62 billion, with a fully diluted valuation of ~$6 billion, currently down 54% since the beginning of 2024.

Holiday Shopping for Coins

• December's cryptocurrency exchange volume reached $2.94 trillion, marking the second consecutive month above the $2 trillion threshold and representing an 8.5% increase from November's $2.71 trillion. 
  • While Binance maintained its market-leading position with $1 billion in volume, several mid-tier exchanges demonstrated significant growth. 
  • BitGet's volume doubled from $88 billion in November to $178 billion in December, while OKX and Huobi processed $177 billion and $95 billion in transactions, respectively.
• The volume distribution suggests an evolving market structure, with mid-tier exchanges capturing a larger share of total market volume and APAC-based platforms showing increased prominence. 
  • This shift in trading activity indicates broader geographical participation and a more diverse investor base. 
• The robust volumes coincided with strong market performance, as Bitcoin traded consistently in the $90,000-$94,000 range and the total cryptocurrency market capitalization remained above $3 trillion.
  • Altcoins benefitted from the month, as Bitcoin's dominance dropped to monthly lows of 51% before ending the year at 54%. 
  • Bitcoin dominance is commonly used to indicate when capital is rotating between Bitcoin and Alts. 
• Market dynamics appear to be driven by multiple factors, including growing retail participation across various regions, novel product offerings from smaller exchanges, and enhanced market infrastructure supporting higher volumes. 
  • The increased activity also reflects broader institutional acceptance of cryptocurrency trading, particularly as markets anticipate President Trump’s inauguration this month. 
  • We’ll be watching to see if the trend continues as institutional traders return to their desks after the holiday period.

Active Aptos

• As of Friday, January 3, 2025, the 7-day moving average (7DMA) of active addresses on the Aptos blockchain surpassed 965K.
  • To put this into perspective, the figure was approximately 248K at the beginning of September 2024, representing a growth of over 288% in just four months.
  • For further reference, at the beginning of 2024, Aptos had around 88.5K active addresses, showcasing a 990% increase on the year.
• To further assess whether this growth is indicative of genuine adoption, we can take a look at user transactions on the network.
  • Since September 2024, user transactions on Aptos have grown by over 570% since the beginning of September 2024.
  • Daily transactions grew from an average of ~1.47 million during the first week of September to more than ~4.76 million in the first 3 days of 2025.
  • For additional context, Aptos averaged 575K transactions per day during the first week of 2024. Fast forward a year, and the first three days of 2025 have seen a staggering 727% You increase in daily transactions.
• However, it is always worth remembering that active addresses and transaction count are often considered vanity metrics as they are often prone to manipulation and inorganic growth due to how a single entity could generate and spam a network using multiple addresses.
• Regardless, the market capitalization of APT has reflected this growth as it has increased by over 90% since the beginning of 2024.
  • Notably, APT’s market cap has risen by more than 75% since September 2024 alone, showing that the market has efficiently priced in the growth in the protocol’s fundamental metrics since this period.

SUIIII

• Sui (SUI) is leading L1 tokens, delivering a remarkable 542% 1-year return and significantly outpacing its competitors. 
  • The token, which traded at $0.80 a year ago, reached $5.21, while the second-best performer, BNB, returned 132% during the same period. 
  • This performance differential highlights the growing investor interest in emerging Layer 1 platforms.
• Developed by Mysten Labs, Sui's technological architecture differentiates it from traditional blockchains. 
  • The platform employs an object-centric model and the Move programming language, enabling parallel transaction processing and efficient state updates. 
  • In April of 2024, Sui implemented Mysticeti, a consensus algorithm that reduced transaction finality time, contributing to a peak daily transaction volume of 58.4 million. 
  • The network processed 7.5 billion transactions while reaching a high of approximately $2 billion in Total Value Locked at the time of writing.
• The platform's strong performance suggests shifting market dynamics, with investors exploring opportunities beyond established cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. 
  • This suggests that investors increasingly differentiate between blockchain platforms based on their technological innovations rather than following established market leaders. 
  • While modular chains separate execution, settlement, and data availability into distinct layers, monolithic chains like Sui handle all functions within a single network. This design choice, coupled with Sui's parallel processing capabilities, continues to fuel the debate about whether modular or monolithic architectures.

Venturing On

• Note: This chart is exclusive to The Block Pro subscribers
• Q4 2024 venture funding in crypto reached $4 billion across 687 deals, marking the highest quarterly investment total since Q4 2022.
  • Infrastructure investments led with $4 billion deployed, followed by financial services at $970 million.
  • Web3 projects saw the highest number of deals at 141, followed by NFTs/Gaming at 132.
  • Trading and brokerage investments declined from $320 million in Q1 to $161 million in Q4.
• Deal distribution across sectors reveals shifting venture priorities:
  • DeFi maintained steady interest with 125 deals.
  • Infrastructure projects, despite fewer deals (111) than other categories, captured the lion's share of capital.
  • Data and analytics remained selective, with only 10 deals, while enterprise solutions saw 18 deals.
• A notable trend emerged with Echo.xyz, an angel syndicate platform by Cobie, which has been listed in at least nine investment rounds. 
  • The platform's success was highlighted by filling MegaETH's remarkable $10 million raise, completed in just 3 minutes. 
  • Echo.xyz's model enables Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) to create investment syndicates where followers can co-invest, potentially democratizing access to early-stage crypto investments. 
• The quarter's strong performance, particularly in infrastructure investments, suggests renewed confidence in the crypto sector as markets anticipate potential regulatory shifts under the incoming U.S. administration.