Introducing the Crypto Market Map

The Crypto Market Map tracks over 1,500 projects across the entire crypto landscape.

The goal of the Crypto Market Map is to help people understand and contextualize projects within crypto. It provides a clear visualization of the industry's structure and the roles played by different companies and projects.

This website is a destination for the community to stay on top of the expanding crypto space.

The Crypto Market Map is the first to contextualize the role every major project plays in the ecosystem.

The Crypto Market Map is organized into six tech layers from infrastructure projects at the bottom to end user-facing projects at the top. The layers reflect the progression of crypto as its infrastructure matures.

The six tech layers in the Crypto Market Map are:

1. Core Infrastructure: This foundational layer includes projects like Bitcoin and other Layer 1 blockchains that have expanded upon Bitcoin's initial design, offering improvements and different trade-offs. Mining services, hardware manufacturers, and other infrastructure level projects are included in this layer.

2. Scaling: As usage of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other Layer 1s increased, projects emerged to address scalability. This layer includes Layer 2s, Layer 3s, and modular blockchain projects.

3. Interoperability: With the proliferation of chains, the ability for information to transfer across chains has become crucial. Projects in this layer focus on enabling inter-chain communication, data sharing, and asset transfer.

4. Developer Tools and Services: This layer catalogs tools, services, and data providers essential for developers and users. It includes everything from development frameworks to data analysis tools.

5. Protocols: These projects are characterized by rules that largely execute on-chain. Many different front-ends could be created on top of these protocols to service different sets of users. These projects span use cases across Decentralized Finance, NFT and Gaming, Social, Identity and Data Sovereignty, Privacy, and more.

6. Applications: These projects are characterized by rules that mostly do not execute on-chain. These projects span use cases across Centralized Finance, Creator Platform, NFT and Gaming, Social, Identity and Data Management and Sovereignty, Privacy, and more.

The line between Protocols and Applications is not always distinct and many projects can be considered both. This is because many applications in crypto have both off-chain and on-chain components.

138 projects are included in more than one category within the Crypto Market Map.

The Crypto Market Map is designed to visually show where most projects are building in crypto. Each layer's height shows the number of projects. The tallest layer has the most projects. Within each layer, categories with more projects are on the left, and those with fewer projects are on the right.

Crypto has become increasingly specialized and complex as it matures. We created the Crypto Market Map to provide an overview of the rapidly expanding crypto industry.

500+ projects were included in the Electric Capital market map from June 2019.

1,500+ projects are included in the Crypto Market Map in 2024 despite only accounting for significant projects.

Since we published our first market map in 2019, the crypto landscape has shifted meaningfully:

• Decentralized Finance is now a major category of crypto. In 2019, the category Decentralized Finance did not appear in the market map because it was not large or distinct enough to separate from non-protocolized financial applications. Projects like Uniswap and Compound launched less than one year prior. DAI, the third largest stablecoin today with $34B in circulating supply, had not yet launched. TVL across all of DeFi was less than $500M. Today, DeFi has $85B TVL and is the largest category in the Crypto Market Map with 394 projects spanning 14 subcategories, including entirely new, specialized subcategories like Yield, Liquid Staking, Liquid Restaking, and more.
• NFTs now underpin applications across crypto. In 2019, the most widely known NFT collections like Cryptokitties were incorporated into a “Games” category. Few standalone collections existed. Most applications did not utilize NFTs. Today, NFTs have become an asset standard that powers applications across games, creator platforms, music, art, loyalty, finance, identity and more. Protocols that allow lending, borrowing, and derivatives on top of NFT assets have emerged as an entirely new category with 49 projects.
• Scaling and interoperability projects are maturing. In 2019, Layer 2s had 17 projects. There were 8 cross-chain and interoperability projects. Today, Scaling and Interoperability exist as their own “tech layer” in the Crypto Market Map with many categories and subcategories. There are now 73 major Layer 2s. Layer 3 projects have appeared. Modular blockchain is a new category within Scaling and has over 60 major projects - more than all of Layer 2s and Cross-Chain projects combined in 2019. Intent and Account Abstraction is a new category within the Interoperability layer with 11 projects.
• Consumer-facing applications and protocols are growing. Gaming, social, and other consumer-facing applications are expanding quickly. In 2019, there were only 30 major gaming projects; today, there are 121 across games, gaming platforms, and metaverses. There are now 110 projects across social applications and protocols.
• Innovative technologies have moved from theory to practice. Innovations that were largely theoretical in 2019 now have active projects. For example, zero-knowledge technology has grown from a few pioneering projects like Zcash to being utilized across 159 projects in the Crypto Market Map.
• Some categories consolidated as they matured. Some of the largest categories in 2019 have seen more consolidation versus new project expansion as they've matured. In 2019, Smart Contract Platforms and Exchanges were the largest categories of crypto projects. Both have not significantly grown the number of projects because users and developers have consolidated to fewer platforms. We expect the same consolidation effect will take over other categories as they each mature.

Specialization has become crucial in crypto to stay updated with advancements across different categories. Each field requires individual expertise. As crypto expands, understanding all verticals as a whole has become increasingly challenging. The Crypto Market Map aims to solve this by providing an overview of the entire industry.

The Crypto Market Map intends to incorporate only major projects, and is an undercounting of all projects in the crypto space.

The intent of the Crypto Market Map is to include projects that have significant industry or cultural relevance and longevity.

The projects in this market map come from a pool of thousands of crypto projects. To be included in the Market Map, a project must have at least one of the following characteristics:

• $2M+ funding round since 2023 and have active updates since March 2024
• $50M+ funding round and have active updates since March 2024
• 50+ developers working on it in 2024
• top 100 market cap on Coingecko
• leading DeFi project on its respective chain on DefiLlama
• individual projects that have significant community support with 10K+ followers on Twitter
• individual projects that play a leading or significant role in a chain's ecosystem

Hackathon projects and projects that do not show intention of shipping products that they initially announced or its shipping timeline is potentially too far in the future have been excluded even if they fulfill one of the criteria above.

The Crypto Market Map is incomplete and in beta. Please help us improve it!

This map is in beta and far from complete.

We reviewed thousands of crypto projects for inclusion in the Market Map, but we expect there are still gaps. Certain projects may be missing due to gaps in data sources. Categorization may be subjective, and so projects could be missing from certain categories.

Furthermore, new projects become significant over time, and keeping the map up-to-date will be a community effort.

By building the Crypto Market Map in public, we aim to provide a valuable, community-driven tool for everyone in the crypto industry.

Missing project? Wrong categorization? General feedback? Please contribute to refine and expand the Crypto Market Map here.

Disclosures
This Content is for Informational Purposes Only. We may have previously held, currently hold, or will in the future hold tokens or equity in some of the projects mentioned in this report. Nothing in this report should be construed as financial advice.