Crypto data aggregator CoinMarketCap has released its Crypto Market Analysis report for the first half of the year. Within the report, the coin information website described the second quarter of 2023 as a “lost quarter” as a result of several factors, including the lack of a strong market narrative compared to the first quarter of the year. A few areas, however, experienced strong growth and resilience, the report notes.
According to the report, Q1 showed more positive developments such as Bitcoin (BTC) doubling in price and the rise of layer-2 solutions such as Arbitrum and ZK. In addition, the first quarter of 2023 also showed a strong nonfungible token (NFT) market that was driven by product updates and the issuance of NFT marketplace Blur’s token.
The data aggregator also noted that the second quarter “failed to produce” groundbreaking developments. Notwithstanding trends that showed Q2 to be a memecoin season and the popularity of the new BRC-20 token standard, CoinMarketCap argued that Q2 simply did not generate the level of excitement that the first quarter showed.
Despite this, the data company said some positive events did occur during the the second quarter. This includes the Crypto Fear and Greed Index, a metric that aims to illustrate an overall crypto market sentiment, showing a score of 52 which is considered “neutral.” This result is much better compared to its score of 32 at the start of the year, which indicated “fear.”
Related: Altcoins ‘bled’ as Bitcoin gained dominance in Q2: CoinGecko
Even though the market was very challenging, CoinMarketCap also noted that specific sectors showed resilience and growth in their year-to-date (YTD) market capitalizations. These include virtual reality and augmented reality showing a 704% growth, and artificial intelligence and big data showing a 323% growth.
Meanwhile, decentralized finance (DeFi) projects and infrastructure have also started to make a comeback. According to the data, lending and borrowing increased by 149%, derivatives increased by 75%, storage increased by 86% and interoperability increased by 58%.
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