Author|Azuma(@azuma_eth)
The market continues to slump, with funds underperforming, protocols shutting down, whales staying silent, and retail investors bleeding... It seems like everyone from top to bottom in the industry is losing money. However, even in such a cold market environment, a very few projects are still running their money-printing machines at full throttle.
The latest example is Polymarket, which has fully opened its fee gates. Since recently expanding its fee scope and modifying its fee formula (Recommended reading: "Hardcore Analysis of Polymarket's Fee Formula: How Did the Extreme Rate of 90+% Pop Out?"), Polymarket's revenue generation capability has significantly surged; as of publication, Polymarket's total fee income has exceeded $24 million, with a single-day record of $1.5 million in revenue on April 2.
Taking this opportunity, the author checked the revenue rankings on Defillama to see which businesses are still making steady profits in the bear market, and the results were quite surprising: The core businesses and revenue sources of the listed projects are quite clear, even "simple."
As shown above, I believe most players deeply involved in the crypto market could guess most of these names even without looking at the answers, and probably know exactly what they do. But when these names are neatly listed together, I suddenly realized that the main revenue sources of these profitable businesses are highly convergent, and can basically be summarized into two major categories: one is interest spread, and the other is transaction tax (fees).
First is interest spread, which is essentially acting as a "capital intermediary." The core logic is to absorb funds at a relatively low cost while deploying funds at a relatively high yield, using time to gradually accumulate the difference between the yield and the cost — the profit of such businesses depends on the scale and duration of the capital沉淀 (sedimentation), the larger the scale and the longer the time, the higher the profit.
Stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle fall into this category. Their main income comes from the interest generated by deploying reserve funds into assets like U.S. Treasury bonds, while the costs mainly involve subsidies paid to partners and users. The difference between the two is the profit. Lending protocols like Aave also belong here; the spread is the difference between the relatively higher borrowing rate and the relatively lower deposit rate. Liquid staking services (LST) like Lido are no exception; they withhold a certain percentage from the native staking rewards as a service fee, which is also a form of interest spread.
Next is transaction tax. This type of business is easier to understand. As long as transaction-related activities (including token creation) occur, the business entity can "levy a tax" in the form of fees on each activity — the profit of such businesses depends on the transaction size per activity and the frequency of activities. The larger the size and the higher the frequency, the higher the profit.
Whether it's Hyperliquid and EdgeX focusing on perpetual contract trading, Polymarket focusing on event trading, pump.fun, GMGN, Axiom, and four.meme focusing on Meme trading, Aerodrome, Jupiter, and Phantom (whose main revenue comes from Swap fees on the wallet frontend) focusing on spot trading, or Courtyard and Fragment focusing on NFT trading (it's quite a surprise this category made the list), their primary revenue source is transaction tax.
The only few special cases in the rankings are Grayscale, Chanilink, and Titan Builder. Grayscale seems a bit out of place here; its core revenue comes from ETF and fund management fees, essentially a traditional asset management business focused on the cryptocurrency market. Chanilink is definitely worth mentioning; its main revenue comes from data service fees paid by projects calling its oracle (which can be categorized as a transaction tax to some extent). This is more like a To B on-chain SaaS business, but as you can see, the Matthew Effect in this path is more significant than in other tracks. Titan Builder is purely a sporadic phenomenon. It is a block builder service provider, not normally a particularly lucrative business. The reason it made the list is that Titan Builder got the biggest piece of the pie in last month's massive AAVE transaction sandwiching incident (see "50M USDT for 35K AAVE: How Did the Disaster Happen?").
Odaily Note: See what it means to not open for business for three years, but eat for three years when you do.
So the conclusion is clear. The projects that continue to make money in the bear market are not those pursuing complex mechanisms and high-risk opportunities, but those that can operate continuously凭借 (relying on) simple and clear revenue models. In the still volatile cryptocurrency market, simpler revenue models have shown greater resilience and better withstand the test of market fluctuations.
However, a simpler revenue model absolutely does not mean these businesses are "easier to do." On the contrary, behind the simple revenue model often lie more complex product services and精细 (meticulous) operational management. This is where the leading players on the list have truly "competed" their way to differentiation. From interaction design, to liquidity accumulation, to risk management, to user communication and feedback... To stand out in the fierce competition of the存量 (stock) market, one must invest more effort into the product and service.
The crypto winter is not over yet. The projects that can truly survive and even profit are often those that flexibly combine simple revenue models with complex product services. Perhaps, this is the long-term code to穿越 (traverse) bull and bear markets.
