Original article | Odaily Odaily( @OdailyChina )
Author｜Azuma ( @azuma_eth )
With the market remaining sluggish, funds are abandoning their operations, negotiated agreements are being shut down, large investors are silent, and retail investors are bleeding money... it seems that everyone in the industry is losing money. But even in such a cold market environment, a very few projects are still running their money-printing machines.
The latest example is Polymarket, which has completely opened the floodgates to transaction fees. Since recently expanding its fee range and revising its fee formula (recommended reading: " Hardcore Analysis of Polymarket's Fee Formula: How Did the Extreme 90+% Rate Emerge? "), Polymarket's revenue has surged; as of press time, Polymarket's total fee revenue has exceeded $24 million, with a record daily revenue of $1.5 million on April 2nd.
Taking this opportunity, I browsed the revenue rankings on Defillama to see which businesses were still making money during the bear market. The results were quite surprising: the core businesses and revenue sources of the listed projects were quite clear, even "simple".
As shown in the image above, most players deeply involved in the crypto market could probably guess most of the names even without seeing the answers, and likely know exactly what they do. However, when these names are neatly arranged together, I suddenly realized that the main sources of revenue for these profitable businesses are highly similar, and can even be summarized into two main categories: interest rate spreads and transaction taxes (fees).
First, there's the interest rate spread. Essentially, this is acting as a "financial intermediary." Its core logic is to absorb funds at a relatively low cost while deploying them with a relatively high return, gradually accumulating the difference between the return and the cost over time. The returns of this type of business depend on the scale and duration of the funds invested; the larger the scale and the longer the time, the higher the returns.
Stablecoin issuers such as Tether and Circle fall into this category. Their main revenue comes from the interest earned after deploying reserves to assets such as US Treasury bonds, while their costs mainly consist of subsidies paid to partners and users. The difference between the two is their revenue. Lending protocols such as Aave also fall into this category, where the interest rate spread is the difference between a relatively high borrowing rate and a relatively low deposit rate. Liquidity staking services (LST) such as Lido are no exception. They deduct a certain percentage from the staking rewards as a service fee, which also falls under the category of interest rate spread.
Secondly, there is transaction tax. This type of business is easier to understand. As long as there is a transaction-related activity (including token creation), the business entity can "tax" the transaction in the form of a fee. The revenue of this type of business depends on the transaction size and frequency of the activity. The larger the size and the higher the frequency, the higher the revenue.
Whether it's Hyperliquid and EdgeX, which focus on contract trading; Polymarket, which focuses on event trading; pump.fun, GMGN, Axiom, and four.meme, which focus on meme trading; Aerodrome, Jupiter, and Phantom, which focus on spot trading (their main revenue comes from the swap fees on the wallet frontend); or Courtyard and Fragment, which focus on NFT trading (it's surprising that this category even made the list), their main source of revenue is transaction tax.
The only exceptions on the list are Grayscale, Chanilink, and Titan Builder. Grayscale's inclusion here is somewhat odd, as its core revenue comes from ETF and fund management fees, essentially making it a traditional asset management business focused on the cryptocurrency market. Chanilink is worth mentioning, as its main revenue comes from data service fees paid by projects for calling oracles (which can also be classified as transaction tax in a sense), making it more like a B2B on-chain SaaS business. However, as you can see, the Matthew effect is more pronounced in this path than in other sectors. Titan Builder is purely an isolated phenomenon. It's a block building service provider, not normally a highly profitable business. The reason it's on the list is because Titan Builder profited the most from the massive AAVE transaction squeeze last month (see " 50 Million USDT Exchanged for $35,000 in AAVE: How Did the Disaster Happen? ").
Odaily Note: Look at what it means to not open for business for three years, but then make enough to live off for three years.
Therefore, the conclusion is clear. Projects that continue to generate profits during a bear market are not those that pursue complex mechanisms and high-risk opportunities, but rather those businesses that can operate sustainably with simple and clear profit models. In the still volatile cryptocurrency market, simpler profit models have demonstrated greater resilience and are better able to withstand market fluctuations.
However, a simpler revenue model does not mean that these businesses are "easier to do." On the contrary, behind the simple revenue model lies a more complex product service and meticulous operation management. This is where the top players on the list truly differentiate themselves. From interaction design to liquidity accumulation, to risk management, and to user communication and feedback... to stand out in the fierce competition of the existing market, more effort must be invested in products and services.
The cryptocurrency winter is far from over. Projects that truly survive and even profit are often those that flexibly combine simple profit models with complex product services. Perhaps this is the secret to long-term success in navigating bull and bear markets.
