Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)
Market conditions remain sluggish, with funds giving up, protocols shutting down, large holders silent, and retail investors suffering losses... it seems everyone from top to bottom is losing money. Yet even in this bleak market environment, a handful of projects continue to operate their money-printing machines at full speed.
The latest case is Polymarket, which has fully opened the fee faucet. Since recently expanding its fee scope and revising its fee formula (recommended reading: “Deep Dive into Polymarket’s Fee Formula: How Did Extreme Rates Exceed 90%+?”), Polymarket’s revenue capacity has surged significantly; as of this writing, its total fee revenue has exceeded $24 million, with a single-day record of $1.5 million on April 2.
Taking this as an opportunity, I checked the yield rankings on DefiLlama to see which projects were still consistently generating revenue during the bear market—and the results were quite surprising: the core businesses and revenue sources of the listed projects were remarkably clear, even simplistic.
As shown above, most seasoned players in the crypto market can likely guess most of these names—even without seeing the answers—and probably know very well what they do. But when these names are laid out side by side, I suddenly realized that the primary revenue sources for these profitable businesses are highly similar, and can essentially be categorized into just two broad types: spread and transaction fees.
First is the interest spread, which essentially involves acting as a financial intermediary. The core logic is to acquire funds at a relatively low cost and deploy them at a relatively higher return, gradually accumulating the difference between returns and costs over time — the profitability of this business depends on the scale and duration of fund accumulation; the larger the scale and the longer the duration, the higher the returns.
Stablecoin issuers such as Tether and Circle fall into this category, with their primary revenue generated from earning interest by deploying reserves into assets like U.S. Treasuries, while their main costs consist of subsidies paid to partners and users; the difference between the two constitutes their profit. Lending protocols like Aave also belong to this category, where the spread is the difference between relatively higher borrowing rates and relatively lower deposit rates. Similarly, liquid staking services (LSTs) like Lido are no exception—they retain a portion of the native ETH staking rewards as a service fee, which also constitutes a spread.
Secondly, there is the transaction tax. This type of business is easier to understand: whenever any transaction-related activity occurs (including token creation), the business can collect a fee as a form of “tax” on each individual transaction—its revenue depends on the size of each transaction and the frequency of activities; the larger the volume and the higher the frequency, the greater the revenue.
Whether it’s Hyperliquid and EdgeX, which focus on derivatives trading; Polymarket, which specializes in event trading; pump.fun, GMGN, Axiom, and four.meme, which center on meme trading; Aerodrome, Jupiter, and Phantom (whose primary revenue comes from swap fees via wallet frontends) for spot trading; or Courtyard and Fragment, which focus on NFT trading (it’s surprising to see these even make the list), their main source of revenue is transaction fees.
The only notable exceptions on the leaderboard are Grayscale, Chanilink, and Titan Builder. It’s somewhat odd to see Grayscale here, as its core revenue comes from management fees on ETFs and funds—essentially a traditional asset management business focused on the cryptocurrency market. Chanilink, however, is worth highlighting: its primary income stems from data service fees paid by projects for oracle calls (which can be loosely categorized as a form of transaction tax), making it more of a B2B on-chain SaaS business. As you can see, however, this path exhibits even stronger network effects than other segments. Titan Builder is purely an outlier—a block building service that normally wouldn’t be considered a highly profitable venture. It made the list because Titan Builder captured the largest share of profits during last month’s massive AAVE sandwich attack (see “$50M USDT for $35K AAVE: How Did This Disaster Happen?”).
Odaily note: See what it means to go three years without a sale, then make enough in one sale to last three years.
So the conclusion is clear: projects that continue to generate profits during bear markets are not those pursuing complex mechanisms or high-risk opportunities, but rather those that can sustainably operate with simple, clear yield models. In an still volatile cryptocurrency market, simpler yield models have demonstrated greater resilience and better withstand market fluctuations.
But a simpler revenue model does not mean these businesses are “easier to run”—on the contrary, behind simple revenue models often lie far more complex products, services, and finely tuned operational management. This is where the leading players on the list have truly differentiated themselves. From interaction design and liquidity accumulation to risk management and user communication and feedback, standing out in today’s fiercely competitive existing market requires significant investment in product and service excellence.
The crypto winter is not over yet; the projects that truly survive—and even profit—are often those that flexibly combine simple yield models with complex product offerings. Perhaps this is the long-term key to navigating bull and bear markets.