Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily
In the crypto world, there is no "eternal profit myth", but there are "capital attraction legends".
In the just-concluded October, according to Dune data, pump.fun has accumulated over $160 million in earnings, with a total of over 2.4 million addresses and more than 2.8 million tokens deployed; currently, its cumulative earnings have reached as high as $167.3 million, in other words, in just about 4 days, the "strongest capital attraction machine" of this cycle, pump.fun, has seen its earnings increase by about $73 million, which is terrifying.
Combining the income data of various protocols over the past year, Odaily Planet Daily will conduct a classification review of the top 10 "strongest capital attraction protocols" in this article, and reveal the trend of the industry cycle changes to provide readers with reference.
A comprehensive review of the capital attraction machines: 42 major projects have generated over $30 million in revenue in the past year, mainly divided into 4 categories
According to data from the defillama website, if the time is narrowed down to within 1 year, there are currently 42 major project protocols that have exceeded $30 million in revenue, which can be mainly divided into the following categories:
Blockchain ecosystem: L1 networks are still the "mainstream capital attraction giants"
Looking closely at this list of "players with over $30 million in protocol revenue", we can clearly see that in the decade-plus development of the blockchain ecosystem, L1 public chain networks are still the most mainstream "capital attraction giants", among which:
· Ethereum has taken the lead with nearly $2.57 billion in revenue over the past year;
· Bitcoin ranks second with nearly $1.323 billion in revenue over the past year;
· TRON, positioned as a "stablecoin network", has earned $515 million in revenue;
· Solana has earned $407 million in revenue thanks to the raging MEME coin craze this year;
· BSC (i.e. BNB Chain) has benefited from being backed by the Binance exchange, earning $180 million in revenue;
· Avalanche has seen more explosive growth towards the end of 2023, with its monthly protocol revenue growing from $2.5 million to $52.25 million.
Overall, although the development path of the L1 ecosystem has been extremely bumpy, it is still the main "pillar" supporting the crypto world, and Ethereum's staggering $19.367 billion in protocol revenue (as of November 3, 2024) is indeed awe-inspiring. This also indirectly shows that as the largest ecosystem in the crypto world, Ethereum is far from the "end of the road" that many people have talked about.
Representative ecosystems
Infrastructure projects: Stablecoins and DEXs are the "capital attraction masters"
Another category of projects that rank high on the "capital attraction ranking" are the various infrastructure projects including stablecoins, staking protocols, and DEXs, among which -
1. Tether, the issuer of USDT, and Circle, the issuer of USDC, have respectively $16.17 billion and $516 million in protocol revenue over the past year, ranking at the top;
2. DEXs such as Uniswap, Raydium, and PancakeSwap are in the second tier of this category, with protocol revenue ranging from $350 million to $820 million over the past year;
In addition, Ethereum ecosystem staking and restaking protocols such as Lido and Ethena have also gained high market recognition with $986 million and $136 million in protocol revenue over the past year, becoming part of the "new infrastructure".
Representative projects
Application projects: Wallets and MEME coin platforms are the "capital attraction machines"
As for specific application projects, the previous "industry hotspot" - wallet applications and the theme track of this cycle "MEME coin platforms" have become the most dominant "capital attraction machines". Among them -
pump.fun (platform note as Pump) ranks 16th with $146 million in protocol revenue over the past year;
pump.fun ranks 16th
MetaMask ranks 28th with $70.49 million in protocol revenue over the past year.
MetaMask ranks 28th
Expansion projects: L2 and service platforms are the "new capital attraction players"
In addition to the main categories mentioned above, there are also many "expansion projects" that rank high in protocol revenue over the past year - such as the Ethereum L2 networks including Base, Arbitrum, ZKsync Era, and Optimism, among which -
1. Base ranks 26th with $73.02 million in protocol revenue over the past year;
2. Arbitrum ranks 32nd with $56.19 million in protocol revenue over the past year;
3. ZKsync Era ranks 38th with $36.74 million in protocol revenue over the past year;
4. Optimism ranks 41st with $33.96 million in protocol revenue over the past year.
Representative ecosystems
The service platforms are more diverse, including the former "NFT market king" OpenSea, as well as aggregation trading platforms like DEX Screener, and a number of Telegram ecosystem trading bots such as Photon, BONKbot, Trojan, Banana Gun, and Maestro. Of course, from the chart below, we can also see that the Solana ecosystem is still the main target for these projects.
Representative projects
Review of the top 10 "strongest capital attraction" protocols, a glimpse of the most "profitable" tracks in crypto
Combining the above information and data from the defillama website, we can filter out the following representative "capital attraction projects" based on the total protocol revenue data -
1. Ethereum, with a total protocol revenue of $19.369 billion;
2. Uniswap, with a total protocol revenue of $5.697 billion;
3. BTC, with a total protocol revenue of $4.144 billion;
4. BSC (BNB Chain), with a total protocol revenue of $2.857 billion;
5. OpenSea, with a total protocol revenue of $2.783 billion;
6. Lido, with a total protocol revenue of $1.939 billion;
7. Tether, with a total protocol revenue of $1.684 billion;
8. PancakeSwap, with a total protocol revenue of $1.614 billion;
9. TRON, with a total protocol revenue of $1.17 billion;
10. AAVE, with a total protocol revenue of $961 million.
Project ranking summary
In conclusion: Compared to the "version answer", steady and gradual is the way to go
Frankly speaking, in the author's personal view, the back-and-forth of "capital attraction protocols" also reflects the changes in the crypto industry:
· Before 2020, the most capital-attracting protocols were undoubtedly the various public chains that originated from ICOs, and Ethereum also stood out from that time, laying the foundation for its current $300 billion market cap;
· In the 2020-2022 stage, the Ethereum ecosystem became the "central territory of the cryptocurrency industry", driven by a wave after wave of industry trends such as DeFi Summer, GameFi Summer, and NFT Summer, platforms and projects corresponding to these tracks such as Uniswap, Axie Infinity, STEPN, and OpenSea emerged one after another, taking on the banner of industry capital attraction;
· In the 2023-2024 stage, which is the current cycle, first the "SocialFi golden product" represented by friend.tech appeared, and then the "MemeFi MVP" represented by pump.fun emerged, and the "capital black hole" of the crypto industry has become the "asset issuance platform" that simultaneously controls liquidity and attention.
However, a closer look at the ranking of agreement income over the past year or even a longer period of time shows that the version answer is at best a newcomer in the "cash cow" track, and whether they can go through the early and middle stages of the product life cycle and still ensure that they "do not leave the table" and "stay in the game" in the later stages is still an unknown.
Compared to countless "one-off" "agreements and applications", perhaps a steady stream of ecology is still the best "cash cow".
