After the Tide Recedes: Which Web3 Projects Are Consistently Profitable?
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After the Tide Recedes: Which Web3 Projects Are Consistently Profitable?
They mostly revolve around two things: one is transactions, and the other is attention.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Biteye Core Contributor Viee
After the bubble subsides, what is the survival baseline for crypto projects?
In an era where anything could be spun into a story and given a high valuation, cash flow didn't seem necessary. But now it's different.
VCs are retreating, and liquidity is tightening. In such a market environment, the ability to generate profit and maintain positive cash flow has become the first filter for testing a project's fundamental strength.
In contrast, other projects have weathered cycles relying on stable income. According to DeFiLlama data, in October 2025, the top three crypto projects by revenue generated $688 million (Tether), $237 million (Circle), and $102 million (Hyperliquid) respectively in a single month.
In this article, we want to discuss these projects with genuine cash flow. Most of them revolve around two things: trading and attention. These are the two most fundamental sources of value in the business world, and the crypto space is no exception.
01 Centralized Exchanges: The Most Stable Revenue Model
In the crypto world, it's no secret that "exchanges are the most profitable."
The main revenue sources for exchanges include trading fees and listing fees. Taking Binance as an example, its daily spot and derivatives trading volume has long accounted for 30-40% of the entire market. Even in the quietest market of 2022, its annual revenue reached $12 billion, and revenue during this bull cycle will only be higher, not lower. (Data from CryptoQuant)
In summary: as long as people trade, exchanges have income.
Another example is Coinbase. As a listed company, its data disclosure is clearer. In Q3 2025, Coinbase's revenue was $1.9 billion, with a net profit of $433 million. Trading revenue was the main source, contributing over half, with the remaining income coming from subscription and service revenue, etc. Other top exchanges like Kraken and OKX are also steadily profitable, with Kraken reportedly generating around $1.5 billion in revenue in 2024.
The biggest advantage of these CEXs is that trading inherently generates revenue. Compared to many projects still struggling to validate their business models, they are already earning real money through service fees.
In other words, in this phase where storytelling is becoming harder and hot money is dwindling, CEXs are among the few players that can survive without fundraising, relying solely on themselves.
02 On-Chain Projects: PerpDex, Stablecoins, Public Chains
According to DefiLlama data as of November 27, 2025, the top ten on-chain protocols by revenue over the past 30 days are shown in the figure below.
From this, we can see Tether and Circle firmly occupying the top spots. Relying on the US Treasury bond spread behind USDT and USDC, these two stablecoin issuers earned nearly $1 billion in a month. Following closely is Hyperliquid, solidly holding the title of "the most profitable on-chain derivatives protocol." Additionally, the rapid rise of projects like Pumpfun once again validates that the old logic of "trading coins is not as good as selling coins, selling shovels is not as good as selling tools" still works in the crypto industry.
It's worth noting that dark horse projects like Axiom Pro, Lighter, and other protocols, although their overall revenue scale is not large, have also established positive cash flow paths.
2.1 PerpDex: Real Yield for On-Chain Protocols
This year, the most impressive PerpDex is Hyperliquid.
Hyperliquid is a decentralized perpetual contract platform using an independent chain with its own matching engine. Its growth was quite sudden; in August 2025 alone, it completed $383 billion in trading volume, generating revenue as high as $106 million. Furthermore, the project allocates 32% of its revenue to buy back and burn its platform token. According to a report from @wublockchain12 yesterday, the Hyperliquid team unlocked 1.75 million HYPE ($60.4 million), with no external financing and no selling pressure, using protocol revenue to buy back tokens.
For an on-chain project, this is approaching the revenue efficiency of a CEX. More importantly, Hyperliquid genuinely earns money and then feeds it back into the token economic system, establishing a direct connection between protocol revenue and token value.
Now, let's talk about Uniswap.
Over the past few years, Uniswap has been criticized for not sharing fees with token holders. For example, it charges 0.3% per trade, but all goes to LPs, and UNI holders receive no income at all.
It wasn't until November 2025 that Uniswap announced plans to activate a protocol fee-sharing mechanism and use a portion of historical revenue to buy back and burn UNI tokens. Estimates suggest that if this mechanism had been implemented earlier, the funds available for burning in just the first ten months of this year would have been as high as $150 million. Upon this news, UNI surged 40% that day. Although Uniswap's market share has dropped from a peak of 60% to 15%, this proposal could still reshape UNI's fundamental logic. However, after this proposal was released, @EmberCN monitored a UNI investment institution (possibly Variant Fund) transferring millions of $UNI ($27.08 million) into Coinbase Prime, suspected of selling into strength.
Overall, the old DEX model relying on airdrop hype and pump is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Only those projects that truly generate stable income and complete the commercial loop are likely to retain users.
2.2 Stablecoins and Public Chains: Earning Passively from Interest
Beyond trading-related projects, there is also a group of infrastructure projects continuously generating revenue. The most typical among these are stablecoin issuers and frequently used public chains.
Tether: The Giant That Continuously Prints Money
The revenue model of Tether, the company behind USDT, is very simple: whenever someone deposits $1 to obtain USDT, that money is used by Tether to buy low-risk interest-bearing assets like government bonds and short-term bills, with the interest kept by Tether. As global interest rates rose, Tether's profits soared. Its net profit reached $13.4 billion in 2024 and is expected to exceed $15 billion in 2025, approaching that of traditional financial giants like Goldman Sachs. @Phyrex_Ni recently also posted that Tether's rating was downgraded but it remains a cash cow, passively earning over $130 billion in collateral from US Treasuries.
While the circulation scale and net profit of Circle, the issuer of USDC, are slightly smaller, its total revenue in 2024 also exceeded $1.6 billion, with 99% coming from interest income. It should be noted that Circle's profit margin is not as exaggerated as Tether's, partly due to revenue sharing with Coinbase. Simply put, stablecoin issuers are money printers. They don't rely on storytelling for fundraising but on users willing to deposit money with them. In a bear market, these savings-type projects actually thrive more. @BTCdayu also believes stablecoins are a good business, printing money and collecting interest worldwide, while viewing Circle as the king of passive stablecoin earnings.
Public Chains: Relying on Traffic, Not Incentives
Looking at mainnet public chains, the most direct monetization method is Gas fees. The data in the chart below is from Nansen.ai:
Over the past year, looking solely at total transaction fee revenue for public chains provides a clearer picture of which chains have truly converted usage into value. Ethereum's annual revenue was $739 million, still the primary income source, but affected by the Dencun upgrade and L2分流 (L2分流 - likely "L2分流" refers to L2分流 or L2分流, meaning L2分流 or L2分流. In this context, it probably means "L2分流" or "L2分流", i.e., traffic/activity moving to Layer 2 solutions, reducing fees on the mainnet. The translation should reflect this.), it decreased by 71% year-over-year. In contrast, Solana's annual revenue reached $719 million, up 26% year-over-year, driven by the Meme and AI Agent热潮 (热潮 - "boom" or "craze") achieving significant improvements in user activity and interaction frequency. Tron's revenue was $628 million, an 18% year-over-year increase. Bitcoin's annual revenue was $207 million, mainly affected by the decline in inscription trading热度 (热度 - "heat" or "popularity"), showing a noticeable overall drop.
BNB Chain's annual revenue reached $264 million, a 38% year-over-year increase, ranking first in growth rate among mainstream public chains. Although its revenue scale is still lower than ETH, SOL, and TRX, combined with its growth in trading volume and active addresses, it's evident that its on-chain use cases are expanding, and its user structure is becoming more diversified. BNB Chain overall shows strong user retention and genuine demand. This stable growth revenue structure also provides clearer support for the continuous evolution of its ecosystem.
These public chains are like "water sellers." No matter who is panning for gold in the market, they always need to use their water, electricity, and roads. These infrastructure projects, while lacking short-term explosive power, excel in stability and cycle resistance.
03 Businesses Around KOLs: Attention Can Also Be Monetized
If trading and infrastructure are overt business models, then the attention economy is the "hidden business" in the crypto world, such as KOLs, Agencies, etc.
This year, crypto KOLs have formed centers of attention流量 (流量 - "traffic" or "flow").
Influencers active on X, Telegram, and YouTube leverage their personal influence to develop diversified income models: from paid promotions, community subscriptions, course monetization, and a series of流量生意 (流量生意 - "traffic-based businesses"). According to industry rumors, mid-to-upper-tier crypto KOLs can earn $10,000 per month from接推广 (接推广 - "taking on promotions"). At the same time, audience demands for content quality are also increasing. Therefore, KOLs who can weather cycles are often those creators who gain user trust through professionalism, judgment, or deep engagement. This无形中 (无形中 - "intangible" or "implicitly") drives a reshuffle in the content ecosystem during bear markets, with浮躁者 (浮躁者 - "the浮躁者" likely means "the浮躁者" or "the浮躁者", i.e., those who are浮躁 or浮躁, meaning浮躁 or浮躁, likely "impatient" or "superficial") exiting and长期主义者 (长期主义者 - "long-termists") remaining.
Notably, the third layer of attention monetization is KOL轮融资 (KOL轮融资 - "KOL轮融资" likely refers to "KOL轮融资" or "KOL轮融资", i.e., a funding round involving KOLs). This allows KOLs to directly become important participants in the primary market: obtaining project tokens at a discount,承担流量曝光任务 (承担流量曝光任务 - "undertaking traffic exposure tasks"), in exchange for "early筹码 (筹码 - "chips" or "tokens") brought by influence." This model directly bypasses VCs.
A whole set of撮合服务 (撮合服务 - "matching services") has also衍生出 (衍生出 - "derived" or "spawned") around KOLs themselves. Agencies have begun扮演流量中介的角色 (扮演流量中介的角色 - "playing the role of traffic intermediaries"). Matching projects with suitable KOLs, the entire链 (链 - "chain" or "process") is越来越像一个广告投放系统 (越来越像一个广告投放系统 - "increasingly resembling an advertising delivery system"). If you are interested in these business models like KOLs and Agencies, you can refer to our previous long article "揭秘KOL轮：被流量裹挟的一场财富实验" ("Unveiling the KOL Round: A Wealth Experiment Swept Up by Traffic") (https://x.com/BiteyeCN/status/1986748741592711374) to深入了解背后真实的利益结构 (深入了解背后真实的利益结构 - "deeply understand the真实的利益结构 (真实的利益结构 - "real interest structure") behind it").
In short, the attention economy本质上 (本质上 - "essentially") is a form of信任变现 (信任变现 - "trust monetization"), and trust is more稀缺 (稀缺 - "scarce") in a bear market, making the变现门槛 (变现门槛 - "monetization threshold")反而更高 (反而更高 - "actually higher").
04 Conclusion
Projects that can maintain cash flow during the crypto winter mostly confirm the two cornerstones of "trading" and "attention."
On one hand, whether centralized or decentralized trading platforms, as long as there is stable user trading activity, they can obtain持续收入 (持续收入 - "sustained income") through fees. This direct business model allows them to be self-sufficient even as capital retreats. On the other hand, KOLs focused on user attention monetize user value through advertising and services.
In the future, we may see more diverse models. But regardless, projects that have accumulated真实收入 (真实收入 - "real income") during poorer market conditions will have a better chance of leading new development. Conversely, projects that rely entirely on storytelling and lack造血能力 (造血能力 - "造血能力" likely means "造血能力" or "造血能力", i.e., the ability to generate their own revenue/sustain themselves), even if they experience short-term炒作翻身 (炒作翻身 - "hype-driven comebacks"), might ultimately be left无人问津 (无人问津 - "unnoticed" or "ignored").
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