After the tide recedes: Which Web3 projects are still making money?

Original author: Viee, core contributor to Biteye

Original article edited by: Denise, a core contributor to Biteye

After the bubble bursts, what will be the bottom line for the survival of crypto projects?

In an era where anything could be told a story and anything could be overvalued, cash flow didn't seem essential. But things are different now.

Venture capitalists are withdrawing, and liquidity is tightening. In this market environment, the ability to make money and generate positive cash flow has become the first sieve to test the fundamentals of a project.

In contrast, other projects rely on stable income to weather economic cycles. According to DeFiLlama data, in October 2025, the top three highest-grossing crypto projects generated $688 million (Tether), $237 million (Circle), and $102 million (Hyperliquid) respectively in a single month.

In this article, we'll discuss projects with real cash flow. They mostly revolve around two things: transactions and attention. These two fundamental sources of value in the business world are no exception in the cryptocurrency arena.

I. Centralized Exchanges: The Most Stable Revenue Model

In the cryptocurrency world, it's no secret that "exchanges are the most profitable."

Exchanges primarily generate revenue from transaction fees and listing fees. Take Binance, for example; its daily spot and futures trading volume has consistently accounted for 30-40% of the entire market. Even in the sluggish market of 2022, its annual revenue reached $12 billion, and during this bull market cycle, revenue will only be higher. (Data from CryptoQuant)

In short: as long as there are transactions, the exchange can generate revenue.

Another example is Coinbase, which, as a publicly traded company, has clearer data disclosure. In the third quarter of 2025, Coinbase's revenue was $1.9 billion, with a net profit of $433 million. Transaction revenue was the main source, contributing more than half, with the remaining revenue coming from subscriptions and services. Other leading exchanges such as Kraken and OKX are also steadily making money; Kraken reportedly had revenue of approximately $1.5 billion in 2024.

The biggest advantage of these centralized exchanges (CEXs) is that trading naturally generates revenue. Compared to many projects that are still struggling to make their business models viable, they are already genuinely charging for services.

In other words, in this phase where storytelling is becoming increasingly difficult and hot money is becoming increasingly scarce, CEXs are among the few players who can survive on their own without needing to raise funds.

II. On-chain projects: PerpDex, stablecoins, public chains

According to DefiLlama data as of November 27, 2025, the top ten on-chain protocols with the highest revenue over the past 30 days are shown in the figure.

This reveals that Tether and Circle firmly hold the top positions. Leveraging the interest rate spread between US Treasury bonds and USDT and USDC, these two stablecoin issuers earned nearly $1 billion in a single month. Hyperliquid follows closely behind, firmly holding the title of "most profitable on-chain derivatives protocol." Furthermore, the rapid rise of platforms like Pumpfun further validates the old logic that "selling coins is worse than trading them, and selling tools is worse than selling shovels" still holds true in the crypto industry.

It is worth noting that some dark horse projects, such as Axiom Pro and Lighter protocols, have already shown positive cash flow paths, even though their overall revenue is not large.

2.1 PerpDex: Real-world returns from on-chain protocols

This year, the best performing PerpDex is Hyperliquid.

Hyperliquid is a decentralized perpetual contract platform with its own independent blockchain and built-in matching mechanism. Its explosive growth was quite sudden; in August 2025 alone, it completed $383 billion in transactions and generated $106 million in revenue. Furthermore, the project uses 32% of its revenue to buy back and burn platform tokens. According to a report yesterday by @wublockchain12, the Hyperliquid team unlocked 1.75 million HYPE tokens (out of 60.4 million), without external funding or selling pressure, using protocol revenue to buy back tokens.

For an on-chain project, this is approaching the revenue efficiency of a centralized exchange. More importantly, Hyperliquid actually earns money and then gives it back to the token economy system, establishing a direct link between protocol revenue and token value.

Let's talk about Uniswap.

In recent years, Uniswap has been criticized for taking tokens for free, for example, charging 0.3% on each transaction but giving it all to LPs, and UNI holders receiving no income at all.

Until November 2025, Uniswap announced plans to implement a protocol fee-sharing mechanism and use a portion of its historical revenue to buy back and burn UNI tokens. Calculations suggest that if this mechanism had been implemented earlier, the funds available for burning in the first ten months of this year alone would have reached $150 million. Upon the announcement, UNI surged 40% that day. Although Uniswap's market share has fallen from a peak of 60% to 15%, this proposal could still reshape UNI's fundamentals. However, after the proposal was released, @EmberCN detected that an investment institution (possibly a Variant Fund) transferred millions of $UNI ($27.08 million) to Coinbase Prime, suggesting a possible pump-and-dump scheme.

Overall, the old DEX model that relied on airdrops to hype up prices is becoming increasingly unsustainable. Only projects that truly generate stable revenue and complete their business cycle are likely to retain users.

2.2 Stablecoins and Public Blockchains: Earning Money Passively Through Interest

Beyond transaction-related projects, a number of infrastructure projects are also attracting investment. Among these, stablecoin issuers and frequently used public blockchains are the most typical examples.

Tether: The Giant That Continues to Print Money

Tether, the company behind USDT, has a very simple profit model: whenever someone deposits $1 in exchange for USDT, Tether uses that money to buy low-risk assets such as government bonds and short-term notes to earn interest, which it keeps for itself. As global interest rates rise, Tether's profits also increase. Its net profit reached $13.4 billion in 2024 and is projected to exceed $15 billion in 2025, approaching that of traditional financial giants like Goldman Sachs. @Phyrex_Ni recently posted that despite its rating downgrade, Tether remains a cash cow, earning over $130 billion in collateral from US Treasury bonds.

While USDC issuer Circle has a slightly smaller circulating supply and net profit, its total revenue in 2024 still exceeded $1.6 billion, with 99% coming from interest income. It's worth noting that Circle's profit margin isn't as exorbitant as Tether's, partly due to its revenue-sharing partnership with Coinbase. In short, stablecoin issuers are essentially money-printing machines; they don't raise funds through storytelling, but rather by having users willing to deposit their money with them. In a bear market, these savings-oriented projects actually thrive. @BTCdayu also believes stablecoins are a good business, printing money and collecting interest worldwide, and is optimistic that Circle will be the king of passive income in the stablecoin market.

Public blockchains: Relying on traffic, not incentives.

Looking at the mainnet public blockchain, the most direct way to monetize is through gas fees. The data in the following chart is from Nansen.ai:

Looking at total transaction fee revenue across public blockchains over the past year provides a clearer picture of which chains have truly generated practical value. Ethereum's annual revenue was $739 million, remaining its primary source of income, but it declined by 71% year-over-year due to the Dencun upgrade and L2 cache diversion. In contrast, Solana's annual revenue reached $719 million, a 26% increase year-over-year, driven by the popularity of memes and AI agents, resulting in a significant boost in user activity and interaction frequency. Tron's revenue was $628 million, an 18% increase year-over-year. Bitcoin's annual revenue, however, was only $207 million, primarily affected by a decline in inscription trading activity, resulting in a significant overall drop.

BNB Chain's annual revenue reached $264 million, a year-on-year increase of 38%, ranking first among mainstream public chains in terms of growth rate. Although its revenue scale is still lower than ETH, SOL, and TRX, the growth in its transaction volume and active addresses indicates that its on-chain use cases are expanding and its user structure is becoming more diversified. BNB Chain as a whole demonstrates strong user retention and genuine demand. This stable revenue growth structure also provides clearer support for the continued evolution of its ecosystem.

These public blockchains are like "water sellers"; whoever is panning for gold in the market will always need their water, electricity, and roads. While these infrastructure projects may not have short-term explosive growth potential, their strength lies in their stability and resilience to economic cycles.

III. Businesses Surrounding KOLs: Attention Can Also Be Monetized

If transactions and infrastructure are the overt business models, then the attention economy is the "hidden business" in the crypto world, such as KOLs and agencies.

This year, crypto KOLs have become the center of attention and traffic.

Influential figures active on platforms like Twitter, Telegram, and YouTube leverage their personal influence to develop diversified revenue streams: from paid promotions and community subscriptions to monetizing courses. Industry rumors suggest that mid-tier and above crypto KOLs can earn up to $10,000 per month through promotions. Meanwhile, audiences are demanding higher-quality content, so KOLs who weather economic cycles are often those who have earned user trust through professionalism, sound judgment, or deep engagement. This has also subtly reshaped the content ecosystem during bear markets, eliminating those who are short-sighted and retaining those who prioritize long-term commitment.

Of particular note is the third layer of attention monetization: KOL (Key Opinion Leader) funding rounds. This makes KOLs key participants in the primary market: acquiring project tokens at a discount, undertaking traffic exposure tasks, and exchanging "early-stage leverage through influence"—a model that bypasses venture capital.

A whole suite of matchmaking services has emerged around KOLs themselves. Agencies have begun to act as traffic intermediaries, matching projects with suitable KOLs, making the entire process increasingly resemble an advertising placement system. If you are interested in the business models of KOLs and agencies, you can refer to our previous long article, "Unveiling the KOL Round: A Wealth Experiment Driven by Traffic" (https://x.com/BiteyeCN/status/1986748741592711374), to gain a deeper understanding of the true profit structure behind it.

In short, the attention economy is essentially a monetization of trust, and trust is even scarcer in a bear market, making the threshold for monetization even higher.

IV. Conclusion

Projects that have managed to maintain cash flow during the crypto winter largely demonstrate the two cornerstones of "transactions" and "attention".

On the one hand, whether centralized or decentralized, trading platforms can generate continuous revenue through transaction fees as long as they have stable user trading activity. This direct business model allows them to remain self-sufficient even when capital exits. On the other hand, KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) who focus on user attention monetize user value through advertising and services.

In the future, we may see more diverse models, but in any case, projects that have accumulated real revenue during periods of poor market conditions will have a greater chance of leading new development. Conversely, some projects that rely solely on storytelling and lack the ability to generate revenue may experience a short-term surge in popularity, but ultimately they may be forgotten.