Alliance releases 2024 cryptocurrency startup trend report: Ethereum remains the main ecosystem for startups to build blockchain

Alliance has released a 2024 trend report on cryptocurrency startups, which provides insights into trends observed from the application data and their potential impact on the wider startup ecosystem. The key points are as follows:

1. Ethereum remains the main ecosystem for startups to build blockchain, with Solana and Bitcoin experiencing rapid growth in the past 1.5 years. Within the Ethereum ecosystem, 59% of startups today are building on Optimistic rollups (Optimism, Base, and Arbitrum).

2. Popular verticals that have seen an increase in popularity include infrastructure, DeFi, payments, AI x Crypto, while DAO and NFT have seen a decrease in popularity.

3. Europe (31%), the US and Canada (29%), and Asia (27%) are the three main regions where startups are being built today, with the percentage of startups from the US and Canada steadily declining over the past few quarters, while Asia and Africa have been growing.

4. Popular buzzwords that have gained popularity in the past 12 months include Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), Chain Abstraction, Memes, SocialFi, Prediction Markets, Liquidity Staking, Re-Staking, RWA, Stablecoins, L1, L2, and L3.

5. Today, 30% of founders applying to our accelerator have experience with large tech companies (S&P500), and 12% of founders have attended top schools (QS Top 100 Universities).

6. 39% of startups have a sole founder, and in companies with multiple founders, half of the time their equity distribution is equal. 72% of startups work fully remotely (with no employees working on-site).