The 2024 Crypto Market Moves Towards Mainstream: PARTY AWARD 2025 Selection Results Announced

2024 is a landmark moment for the crypto market moving into the mainstream. The approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs successfully opens the door to traditional finance; Bitcoin undergoes halving, and the price skyrockets; mainstream media attention significantly increases, with crypto practitioners playing a key role in the U.S. elections; the liquidity of stablecoins continues to grow, and on-chain activities heat up; phenomenon-level meme coins rise rapidly, triggering the MEME supercycle; the combination of AI and crypto creates a new narrative, with smart agents becoming the new standard for trading. This series of developments lays a solid foundation for the new era.

Against this backdrop, the PARTY AWARD 2025, themed "Becoming Mainstream", aims to recognize Web3 projects, teams, and individuals that continuously build and strive to bring the industry into the mainstream spotlight. After over a month of registration, online voting, and professional evaluation, a total of 141 projects/companies and 10 individuals stood out, winning 22 authoritative annual awards.

Annual Outstanding Contribution Award

Combining technical innovation, ecological development, market influence, and community building across multiple dimensions, three annual outstanding contribution awards are ultimately selected: Bitcoin, Base, and Solana.

Annual Innovation Award

Selected 10 Annual Innovation Awards: ai16z, Ethena, Fractal Bitcoin, GMGNAi, GOAT, Hyperliquid, Mind Network, Polymarket, Pump.fun, and Virtuals Protocol. These projects have significant innovations in terms of technical mechanisms, economic models, business models, investment models, and asset issuance methods.

Annual Application Ranking

The annual application list includes seven major categories of awards, with a total of 45 annual applications selected:

1. Annual Best DeFi: Aave, Ethena, Hyperliquid, Jito, Jupiter, Pendle, Raydium, Sky, THENA, and Uniswap

2. Best Web3 Games of the Year: Big Time, Blocklords, Illuvium, Off the Grid, and Shrapnel

3. Best Web3 Social of the Year: Farcaster, Lens Protocol, Mask Network, Telegram, and UXLINK

4. Annual Best RWA: MANTRA, Ondo Finance, Plume Network, Propy, and Usual

5. Annual Best DePIN: DBunker, Grass, io.net, Privasea, and Pundi X

6. Annual Best AI + Web3 Combination: ai16z, DIN, Virtuals Protocol, MEET48, and Pundi AI

7. Most Popular NFTs of the Year: Azuki, Bitcoin Puppets, Doodles, Milady Maker, and Pudgy Penguins

Annual Best Infrastructure

Select 20 Annual Best Infrastructures:

1. Best L1 of the Year: BNB Chain, Ethereum, Solana, Sui, and Tron

2. Annual Best L2: Arbitrum, Base, Mint Blockchain, Optimism, and zkSync

3. Annual Best Tools: BlockPI, CoinGlass, CryptoHunt, DeGame, GMGNAi, Kaito AI, Masbate, OKX Wallet, RootData, and ZAN CLOUD

Most Promising Projects

Select the 25 most promising projects in the Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and TON ecosystems:

1. Bitcoin Ecosystem: Babylon, Bitlayer, Fractal Bitcoin, Merlin Chain, and Nervos

2. Ethereum ecosystem: Arbitrum, EigenLayer, Ethena, Farcaster, Polymarket, Pudgy Penguins, Sky, Uniswap, Wormhole and zkSync

3. TON Ecosystem: Catizen, DOGS, Hamster Kombat, Notcoin, and Tomo Wallet

4. Solana Ecosystem: Jupiter, Meteora, Pump.fun, Pyth Network, and Raydium

Most Popular MEME of the Year

Select 10 most popular MEMEs of the year: AIXBT, BOME, CHILLGUY, DOGE, GOAT, MOODENG, Neiro, PEPE, PNUT, and PUPS.

Most Influential KOL of the Year

Select 10 most influential KOLs of the year: Ansem, Biteye, dingaling, LaserCat397.eth, Murad, Phyrex, 0xSun, 0xWizard, Sha Po Lang WolfyXBT, and Yu Jin.

Most Influential Web3 Conference of the Year

Select the 5 most influential Web3 conferences of the year: Bitcoin 2024, BREAK POINT 2024, Devcon 2024, Hong Kong Web3 Festival, and TOKEN 2049.

Best Investment Institutions of the Year

Select the 10 best investment institutions of the year: a16z, Alliance, a certain exchange platform laboratory fund, Dragonfly, Hack VC, HTX Ventures, OKX Ventures, Pantera Capital, Paradigm, and SevenX Ventures.

Best Exchange of the Year

Selected 8 Best Exchanges of the Year: a trading platform, Bitget, Bybit, Gate, HashKey Exchange, HTX, OKX, and Upbit.

PANews Best Column

Selected 10 best PANews columns: Arthur Hayes, NingNing, 0xGreythorn, Mint Ventures, On-Chain View, Biteye, Sleeping in the Rain, Yue Xiaoyu, WOO, and Vitalik Buterin.

2024 is seen as a critical turning point in the crypto field, with multiple factors shaping profound changes in the market structure. As these factors intertwine and accelerate, cryptocurrencies are expected to gain a clearer definition and broader recognition within the global financial system by 2025. The PARTY AWARD 2025 showcases emerging trends and development potential in the crypto industry through this list, encouraging more industry pioneers and innovators to actively participate in the long-term construction of the crypto ecosystem.