Author | Asher(@Asher_ 0210)
This year, the crypto market has remained sluggish. There are hot spots on-chain, and every now and then a few surging Meme coins emerge, but these rallies are often concentrated on newly issued tokens that give the market almost no time for proper research. Once the narrative fades, prices quickly fall back, and most players who jump on the bandwagon mid-way end up losing more than they gain.
Since blindly guessing the next 100x coin doesn't make much sense, a more realistic investment logic is: If one plans to slowly dollar-cost average (DCA) during the bear market, waiting for the next bull market to return, which projects are still worth buying now?
Compared to simply following narratives, a more direct screening criterion is: whether the project itself is still making money. If a platform can still stably earn millions, or even tens of millions, of dollars in revenue each month during a crypto bear market, it at least indicates that users and demand persist, and the project has stronger ability to weather cycles. The tokens of such platforms may not necessarily be the most explosively rising altcoins in the next bull cycle.
So, since the beginning of this year, which already tokenized projects have been consistently earning money? Odaily Planet Daily will help everyone sort it out.
(The project revenue data in this article is sourced from Tokenomist and DefiLlama, using a unified revenue metric, i.e., the protocol's actual revenue after deducting portions allocated to supply-side participants like LPs.)
Pump.fun: The "Shovel Seller" in the Meme Sector, Profiting from Wave After Wave of Token Launch Frenzies
Apart from the two major stablecoin issuers, Tether and Circle, Pump.fun is the most profitable native crypto project in the last 30 days, with revenue as high as $41.53 million.
Looking at monthly data, Pump.fun's revenue from January to July this year was $51 million, $40 million, $38.1 million, $32.4 million, $34.4 million, $26.6 million, and $33.7 million, respectively, with cumulative revenue in the first 7 months reaching approximately $256 million. Pump.fun's revenue peaked at the beginning of the year, then trended downward overall with noticeable declines in April and June, but saw some recovery in May and July.
Pump.fun's revenue core comes from the continuous trading of new tokens on its platform. Currently, creating a token itself is free for users, but buying and selling during the Bonding Curve phase incurs transaction fees. According to Pump.fun's latest fee structure, the total fee per transaction on the Bonding Curve is 1.25%, of which 0.95% goes to the protocol and 0.30% is allocated to the token creator. Additionally, a graduation fee of 0.015 SOL is charged when a token graduates from Pump.fun into PumpSwap.
Pump.fun's revenue still depends on the activity of Memes on the Solana chain. Revenue clearly retreats when on-chain sentiment is cool and quickly recovers when hype returns. However, from a bear market perspective, being able to maintain tens of millions of dollars in monthly revenue for 7 consecutive months, with revenue in the last 30 days climbing back above $40 million, itself proves it is one of the strongest "cash flow machines" in Web3 today.
If one believes the Meme sector is here to stay, perhaps PUMP is more worthy of long-term attention than betting on the next Meme coin.
Hyperliquid: The "Bear Market Star" in the Perp DEX Sector, Continuously Generating Cash Flow Despite Sluggish Trading
When it comes to cumulative revenue this year surpassing even Pump.fun, the title goes to the "Bear Market Star" in the Perp DEX sector—Hyperliquid.
Looking at monthly data, Hyperliquid's revenue from January to July this year was $59.8 million, $54 million, $51.5 million, $42.4 million, $46.3 million, $60 million, and $38.4 million, respectively, with cumulative revenue in the first 7 months reaching approximately $352 million, surpassing Pump.fun. Unlike Pump.fun's overall declining trend since the start of the year, Hyperliquid's revenue has not shown sustained one-sided decline; it even hit a yearly high of $60 million in June. Revenue fell back to $38.4 million in July and further decreased to $29.02 million in the last 30 days.
Hyperliquid's revenue mainly comes from perpetual contract and spot trading fees. The platform currently uses a tiered fee structure; for regular users, the base Taker/Maker fees for perpetual contracts are 0.045% and 0.015% respectively, while for spot they are 0.07% and 0.04%. Fees decrease with higher trading volume and HYPE staking amounts. Funding rates are paid directly between longs and shorts and are not part of Hyperliquid's protocol revenue.
Almost all the money Hyperliquid earns goes towards repurchasing and burning HYPE. Currently, about 99% of the fees generated by the protocol go into the Assistance Fund (SEC filings disclose that Hyperliquid increased the proportion of protocol fees entering the Assistance Fund from 97% to 99% in August 2025), which is used to continuously buy HYPE from the secondary market and permanently burn the purchased HYPE.
"Profitable, and constantly buying back"—perhaps this is the most concise and powerful investment thesis for HYPE in a bear market.
Uniswap: DEX Leader Turns on Fee Switch, UNI Finally Starts "Eating" Protocol Revenue
In the last 30 days, Uniswap became the most profitable DEX with $5.6 million in revenue. Although there's still a gap compared to platforms like Pump.fun and Hyperliquid generating tens of millions monthly, within the DEX sector, Uniswap's profitability has returned to the top tier.
Looking at monthly data, Uniswap's revenue from January to July this year was $2.8 million, $3.2 million, $4.6 million, $4.5 million, $3.8 million, $5.1 million, and $4.4 million, respectively, accumulating to approximately $28.4 million in the first 7 months. Overall fluctuations aren't significant, mostly staying within the $3 million to $5 million monthly range, with June hitting a yearly high of $5.1 million.
Uniswap's revenue comes from the Protocol Fee charged during transactions. The protocol fee is now activated on all Uniswap v2 pools and selected v3 pools, gradually expanding from Ethereum to multiple chains like Arbitrum, Base, OP Mainnet, BNB Chain, and Polygon. Taking v2 as an example, users still pay a 0.30% fee per transaction, of which 0.25% goes to LPs and 0.05% goes to the protocol; v3 charges corresponding protocol fee percentages based on different fee-tier pools.
Since the UNIfication proposal was implemented at the end of 2025, Uniswap officially activated the Protocol Fee and uses the revenue to burn UNI (for more details, read: After Uniswap's Fee Switch Activation: Is the 'Report Card' of This DeFi Transformation Impressive?). Protocol fees go into the TokenJar, and external participants wishing to withdraw the accumulated assets must simultaneously burn a corresponding amount of UNI.
The UNI token has transformed from a "pure governance asset" into an "asset explicitly tied to protocol fees and usage." If DEXs remain the most fundamental gateway for on-chain trading, DCA-ing UNI now at least no longer means investing solely in Uniswap's brand and position.
Chainlink: Not Chasing Hype, Being the "Toll Booth" of On-Chain Finance
Without relying on Meme hype or contract trading volume, Chainlink still generated $4.57 million in revenue in the last 30 days. Compared to platforms like Pump.fun and Hyperliquid, whose revenues fluctuate with market trading sentiment, Chainlink operates a more infrastructure-oriented business—as long as on-chain applications like DeFi, stablecoins, and RWA continue to operate, the demand for oracles, cross-chain communication, and data services will not disappear.
Looking at monthly data, Chainlink's revenue from January to July this year was $5.7 million, $4.5 million, $4.4 million, $5.8 million, $4.6 million, $4.6 million, and $5.8 million, respectively, with cumulative revenue in the first 7 months reaching approximately $35.4 million. Chainlink's monthly revenue is relatively stable, mostly staying between $4.4 million and $5.8 million over the past 7 months, even reaching $5.8 million twice in April and July.
Chainlink's revenue comes from fees paid by developers, protocols, and institutions using Chainlink services like Data Feeds, CCIP, Automation, VRF, etc., covering basic on-chain needs such as price data, cross-chain communication, and automated execution. Today, Chainlink services are not only for DeFi but are increasingly entering stablecoin, RWA, and institutional asset on-chain scenarios. Official data shows that as of July 2026, its cumulative Transaction Value Enabled (the value of transactions facilitated by Chainlink) has reached $32.18 trillion.
Currently, Chainlink has launched Payment Abstraction and the Chainlink Reserve, gradually converting Chainlink's business growth into sustained demand for LINK. On-chain and off-chain service revenues paid by users and enterprises can be automatically converted into LINK via Payment Abstraction and continuously accumulated in the Chainlink Reserve.
If more financial assets truly move on-chain in the future, Chainlink may not need to bet on which public chain or which DeFi project ultimately wins—as long as on-chain finance continues to expand, this "toll booth" will generate more and more revenue.
