Annual Review 2024

The year 2024 was perhaps the most significant in the history of cryptocurrencies so far. Indeed, 2024 was a very positive year for cryptocurrencies in terms of both price movements and events. This review looks at the price movements and major events for cryptocurrencies in 2024.

              
First quarter
The year 2024 started on a promising note for cryptocurrency prices, as cryptocurrency prices were on a strong upward trend during the last months of 2023. Going into 2024, the price of Bitcoin was around €38,400 and Ethereum around €2,070. The upward trend at the end of 2023 continued into the first quarter of 2024. Bitcoin reached a new all-time high price in March when the price crossed the $70,000 mark for the first time. For the entire quarter, the Bitcoin price was up by more than 70%. Ethereum also performed well, with its price rising by almost 65% in the first quarter. As with Ethereum, many other cryptocurrencies saw their prices rise less than Bitcoin in the first quarter. However, the exception to this was Solana, which saw its price rise by more than 100% in the first quarter.
The most significant event of the first quarter was definitely the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the US. A total of 11 Bitcoin spot ETF applications were approved by the SEC on 10 January. The most notable ETFs approved were those of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, and Fidelity, the world's third-largest asset manager. The approval of ETFs was a historic moment that had been waited for several years. ETFs made Bitcoin more accessible, especially to institutional investors. The popularity of ETFs was high in the first quarter and ETFs also broke several records. On average in the first quarter, ETFs saw net inflows of around $225 million per trading day.
In addition to the Bitcoin ETF, BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, was featured several times on cryptocurrencies in the first quarter. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink commented positively on cryptocurrencies in January on US television. According to Fink, Bitcoin is no different from what gold has been for thousands of years, as Bitcoin is an investment vehicle that acts as a hedge for the investor. In addition, Fink said, among other things, that he believes in the trend of tokenization, i.e. bringing traditional investment products into the tokenized form familiar from cryptocurrencies. BlackRock also saw some practical action on tokenization, as the asset manager created the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund on the Ethereum blockchain.
During the first quarter, there were also several announcements of companies buying bitcoin. These included MicroStrategy, a business intelligence company, Tether International Limited, which manages the reserves of the stablecoin Tether (USDT), and Nilam Resources, a South American gold mining company. The purchases by these companies were in the range of 9,000-25,000 bitcoins. In addition to these companies, the social media platform Reddit announced purchases of bitcoin and Ethereum's ether token.
The first quarter also saw technical developments in cryptocurrencies, with the most significant single advance being the Dencun update for Ethereum in March. Dencun was Ethereum's most anticipated update since the Merge update in September 2022. In particular, Dencun reduced transaction fees for layer 2 scalability solutions running on top of Ethereum, thereby improving Ethereum's scalability.
Second quarter
After an excellent and interesting first quarter in terms of price developments, the second quarter was a very different time in terms of price developments. Indeed, the cryptocurrency market moved almost sideways. The price of Bitcoin fell by more than 10% in the second quarter, while the price of Ethereum fell by around 5%. Several other cryptocurrencies fell more than the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap.
The two by far most significant cryptocurrency-related events in the second quarter were the Bitcoin halving in April and the Ethereum spot ETFs approved in the US in May. Bitcoin block reward halved on 20 April after almost four years of waiting. It was the fourth halving in Bitcoin's history and this time the block reward was halved from 6.25 bitcoins to 3.125 bitcoins in Bitcoin block number 840,000. This meant that the number of bitcoins mined daily dropped from around 900 bitcoins to 450 bitcoins. At the halving, 19,687,500 bitcoins had been mined, or 93.75% of the maximum of 21 million bitcoins.
Following the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the US in January, the focus shifted to the possible approval of similar Ethereum ETFs. The approval of Ethereum ETFs was confirmed on 24 May, when the SEC approved eight Ethereum spot ETF applications in the US. However, unlike Bitcoin ETFs, Ethereum ETFs did not become available for trading immediately after their approval but had to wait for a few more months.
Third quarter
The third quarter was an interesting time for cryptocurrency price movements, as there were quite large divergences in cryptocurrency price developments. The price of Bitcoin moved both up and down to some extent during the period, ending the quarter with a decline of less than 1%. Ethereum and several other cryptocurrencies underperformed Bitcoin in the third quarter, with Ethereum, for example, falling by more than 25%. Among the best-performing cryptocurrencies in the third quarter was the peer-to-peer lending service Aave, which rose by as much as 60%.  
US companies continued to increase their bitcoin holdings in the third quarter. MicroStrategy and Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital both announced bitcoin acquisitions. MicroStrategy increased its holdings by almost 26,000 bitcoins, while Marathon increased its holdings by more than 8,000 bitcoins. Marathon also announced a new strategy in the third quarter, according to which the mining company will keep all the bitcoins it mines and periodically increase its bitcoin holdings through strategic purchases in the market.
European banks became more actively involved in the cryptocurrency market in the third quarter. First, the Swiss bank Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), the Cantonal Bank of Zurich, announced the launch of cryptocurrency trading and custody services for retail customers and other banks. Initially, trading and custody services will be offered for the two largest cryptocurrencies on the market, Bitcoin and Ethereum. In addition, Commerzbank, one of Germany's largest banks, started offering cryptocurrency services to its corporate clients in the third quarter. In practice, this meant that the German bank started offering Bitcoin and Ethereum trading and custody services in cooperation with Crypto Finance, a subsidiary of the Deutsche Börse stock exchange.
The third quarter also saw Bitcoin comments from influential figures. First, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink commented on Bitcoin in a TV interview in the US. Fink said he used to be a Bitcoin skeptic but has since studied Bitcoin and realized he was wrong. Fink said he now believes that Bitcoin is a legitimate investment that has a place in investment portfolios. He also said that he sees Bitcoin as digital gold.
In addition to Fink, then-presidential candidate and now-future US President Donald Trump spoke about Bitcoin at the annual Bitcoin Conference. In his speech, Trump expressed, among other things, his intention to make the US the cryptocurrency capital of the world and a Bitcoin superpower if he becomes the next president. Trump also announced his intention not to sell confiscated bitcoins held by the US, which he said could serve as the basis for a US strategic bitcoin stockpile.
Fourth quarter
The fourth quarter was a very positive period for cryptocurrency prices. Attention was particularly focused on Bitcoin, which saw its price rise the most in its history in both euro and dollar terms in November, rising over 26,000 dollars and euros. In December, the Bitcoin price crossed the historic $100,000 and €100,000 thresholds for the first time. Over the quarter, the price of Bitcoin rose by almost 60%, while Ethereum gained around 38% over the same period. Several smaller cryptocurrencies achieved higher percentage increases than Bitcoin and Ethereum in the fourth quarter. The success of Bitcoin in particular was driven by factors such as the election of pro-cryptocurrency Donald Trump as the next US president and the high popularity of Bitcoin spot ETFs.
The popularity of US Bitcoin spot ETFs and Bitcoin mining were both at record highs in the fourth quarter. The popularity of Bitcoin spot ETFs was higher in the fourth quarter than in previous quarters. In fact, ETF inflows were almost as high as in the previous three quarters combined. In practical terms, this meant net inflows of around $16.5 billion, compared with around $35.3 billion for the year as a whole. The BlackRock ETF was the most popular, with net inflows of hundreds of millions of dollars over dozens of days.
Bitcoin hashrate, or total computing power used for mining, was on an upward trend for virtually all of 2024. At the same time, the hashrate reached a new record high several times. The hashrate was on a strong upward trend in the fourth quarter, reaching a peak of almost 900 ExaHashes per second (EH/s) in December, according to blockchain analytics specialist Glassnode. In comparison, the hashrate was around 500 EH/s a year ago.
US companies continued to increase their bitcoin holdings in the fourth quarter. In particular, attention focused on MicroStrategy, whose buying accelerated at the end of the year. Indeed, MicroStrategy's bitcoin holdings increased by more than 194,000 bitcoins. By the end of the year, MicroStrategy's holdings had risen to 446,400 bitcoins, worth more than €40 billion at the end of the year. Over the year as a whole, MicroStrategy increased its holdings by more than 257,000 bitcoins. Another US company that increased its holdings in the fourth quarter was Marathon, whose holdings grew from around 26,200 bitcoins to around 44,900 bitcoins. For the year as a whole, the increase was 31,500 bitcoins, about a third of which came from mining activities and the rest from acquisitions.
Summary of 2024 and a look into 2025
2024 was a historic year for cryptocurrency price performance and popularity growth. In many respects, attention was particularly focused on Bitcoin, whose price rose over €50,000 during the year, surpassing the historic $100,000 and €100,000 thresholds. In percentage terms, the price of Bitcoin rose by more than 135%. Ethereum, on the other hand, rose by more than 55% over the year. Among the other cryptocurrencies offered by Northcrypto, Dogecoin and Aave were the best performers, with prices rising by over 275% and over 200% respectively.
Among the most significant events for cryptocurrencies in 2024 were the Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs being approved and becoming available for trading in the US. In particular, the record-high popularity of Bitcoin spot ETFs had several positive effects on the cryptocurrency market. This popularity had a positive impact not only on price performance but also on the visibility of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Indeed, Bitcoin became practically a weekly topic on television in the US over the past year. In addition to ETFs, the visibility of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies was also boosted by the positive comments on cryptocurrencies made by the pro-cryptocurrency US President-elect Donald Trump.
The most significant events for cryptocurrencies in 2024 were strongly linked to Bitcoin. Historically, the halving of Bitcoin's block reward, which has had a significant impact on the cryptocurrency bull markets, occurred in April. As with previous halvings, this time the Bitcoin price started to rise more sharply a few months after the halving. In addition to the halving, the hashrate, the key metric for Bitcoin mining, rose to new records several times over the past year. This reflects the high confidence of Bitcoin miners in the success of Bitcoin in the years to come.
Possibly the most significant cryptocurrency-related trend in 2024 was the increased purchases of bitcoin by several companies. An example and a leading player in this regard was MicroStrategy, which increased its bitcoin holdings by over 135% in one year so that the company's bitcoin holdings are already well over 2% of the maximum 21 million bitcoins. Several players followed in MicroStrategy's footsteps last year, with the most notable acquisitions coming from mining company Marathon and stablecoin issuer Tether.
The outlook for 2025 is positive for cryptocurrencies. In Europe, the MiCA cryptocurrency legislation, which entered into force at the beginning of 2025, creates a good framework for regulated cryptocurrency operators and reduces the regulatory uncertainty surrounding cryptocurrencies. This will make cryptocurrencies a more attractive asset class, especially for many traditional investors. In the US, on the other hand, the most significant thing to look forward to for cryptocurrencies is likely to be the cryptocurrency-related measures of the pro-cryptocurrency Trump administration. In this context, issues that have emerged in the US include the purchase of bitcoin by states and even the US government, and clearer cryptocurrency regulation that encourages innovation. Therefore, 2025 should be another very interesting year for cryptocurrencies!

Ville Viitaharju
Cryptocurrency specialist