Which Projects Are Still Generating Revenue in the Crypto Bear Market?

Author | Asher (@Asher_0210)

This year, the crypto market has remained sluggish. There have been hotspots on-chain, with new meme coins occasionally surging dramatically—but these rallies typically occur on newly launched tokens that give the market little time to conduct proper research. Once the narrative fades, prices quickly revert, and most traders who join mid-way end up losing more than they gain.

Since guessing the next 100x coin is not very meaningful, a more practical investment approach is: if you're planning to dollar-cost average during this bear market and wait for the next bull cycle, which projects are still worth buying now?

A more direct screening criterion than simply following narratives is whether the project is still profitable. If a platform continues to generate steady monthly revenues of several million, or even tens of millions of dollars, during a crypto bear market, it at least indicates that users and demand still exist, and the project has stronger resilience across market cycles. Tokens from such platforms may not necessarily be the ones with the most explosive gains in the next bull market.

So, which tokenized projects have continued to profit this year? Odaily Planet Daily walks you through them.

The project revenue data in this article is sourced from Tokenomist and DefiLlama, and uses a consistent revenue metric: the protocol’s actual revenue after deducting distributions to供给侧 participants such as LPs.

Besides the two major stablecoin issuers, Tether and Circle, Pump.fun is the most profitable crypto-native project in the past 30 days, generating $41.53 million in revenue.

Looking at the monthly data, Pump.fun's revenues from January to July this year were $51 million, $40 million, $38.1 million, $32.4 million, $34.4 million, $26.6 million, and $33.7 million, respectively, totaling approximately $256 million over the first seven months. Pump.fun's revenue peaked at the beginning of the year, followed by an overall fluctuating decline, with notable drops in April and June, and partial recovery in May and July.

Pump.fun's core revenue comes from ongoing trading of new tokens on its platform. Currently, users can create tokens for free, but transaction fees apply when buying and selling during the Bonding Curve phase. According to Pump.fun's latest fee structure, the total transaction fee during the Bonding Curve is 1.25%, with 0.95% going to the protocol and 0.30% allocated to the token creator. Additionally, a graduation fee of 0.015 SOL is charged when a token graduates from Pump.fun to PumpSwap.

Pump.fun's revenue still depends on the activity of Solana-based memes; when on-chain sentiment is weak, revenue declines noticeably, but rebounds quickly when热度 returns. However, from a bear market perspective, maintaining monthly revenues of tens of millions of dollars for seven consecutive months—and recently surpassing $40 million in the past 30 days—demonstrates that it is already among the strongest types of "cash flow machines" in Web3 today.

If you believe the Meme sector is here to stay, PUMP may be more worth long-term attention than betting on the next Meme coin.

Leading the pack in year-to-date revenue, even surpassing Pump.fun, is Hyperliquid—the “beacon of the bear market” in the Perp DEX space.

Looking at monthly data, Hyperliquid's revenues from January to July this year were $59.8 million, $54 million, $51.5 million, $42.4 million, $46.3 million, $60 million, and $38.4 million, respectively, totaling approximately $352 million over the first seven months, surpassing Pump.fun. Unlike Pump.fun, which has seen an overall decline since the beginning of the year, Hyperliquid's revenue has not experienced a sustained one-sided decline, with June reaching a yearly high of $60 million. Revenue in July dropped to $38.4 million and further declined to $29.02 million over the past 30 days.

Hyperliquid's revenue primarily comes from perpetual contract and spot trading fees. The platform currently uses a tiered fee structure, with standard users paying base taker/maker fees of 0.045% and 0.015% for perpetual contracts, and 0.07% and 0.04% for spot trading; higher trading volumes and HYPE staking amounts result in lower fees. Funding rates are paid directly between long and short positions and are not part of Hyperliquid's protocol revenue.

Hyperliquid has directed nearly all of its earnings toward repurchasing and burning HYPE. Currently, approximately 99% of the protocol’s fee revenue is allocated to the Assistance Fund (as disclosed in SEC filings, Hyperliquid increased the portion of protocol fees directed to 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 acquired tokens.

"Earn while continuously repurchasing"—perhaps this is the most concise and powerful investment logic for HYPE in a bear market.

Over the past 30 days, Uniswap generated $5.6 million in revenue, becoming the most profitable DEX. Although it still lags behind platforms like Pump.fun and Hyperliquid, which earn tens of millions of dollars per month, Uniswap’s earning power has reestablished itself among the top tier of DEXs.

Looking at the 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, totaling approximately $28.4 million over the first seven months. Overall fluctuations have been relatively modest, with revenue generally staying within the $3 million to $5 million monthly range, peaking at $5.1 million in June, the highest of the year.

Uniswap's revenue comes from the Protocol Fee charged during trades. Currently, the protocol fee is enabled across all Uniswap v2 pools and select v3 pools, and is gradually being extended from Ethereum to multiple chains including Arbitrum, Base, OP Mainnet, BNB Chain, and Polygon. For v2, users still pay a 0.30% fee per trade, with 0.25% going to LPs and 0.05% allocated to the protocol; v3 collects protocol fees at varying rates depending on the fee tier of each pool.

Since the UNIfication proposal took effect at the end of 2025, Uniswap has officially launched Protocol Fees, with revenues used to burn UNI tokens (for more details, read: After the Uniswap Fee Switch Is Flipped: Is This DeFi Transformation’s “Report Card” Impressive Enough?). Protocol fees will be directed to TokenJar, and external participants wishing to withdraw accumulated assets must burn a corresponding amount of UNI.

The UNI token has shifted from being a "pure governance asset" to one "clearly tied to protocol fees and usage." If DEXs remain the fundamental entry point for on-chain trading, dollar-cost averaging into UNI is now at least more than just investing in Uniswap’s brand and reputation.

Despite not relying on meme hype or contract trading volume, Chainlink generated $4.57 million in revenue over the past 30 days. Unlike platforms such as Pump.fun and Hyperliquid, whose revenues fluctuate with market trading activity, Chainlink operates as an infrastructure business—so long as on-chain applications like DeFi, stablecoins, and RWA continue to operate, demand for oracles, cross-chain communication, and data services will persist.

Looking at the 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, totaling approximately $35.4 million over the first seven months. Chainlink’s monthly revenue has remained relatively stable, consistently ranging between $4.4 million and $5.8 million over the past seven months, with two peaks of $5.8 million in April and July.

Chainlink generates revenue from fees paid by developers, protocols, and institutions using Chainlink services such as Data Feeds, CCIP, Automation, and VRF, which support on-chain infrastructure needs including price data, cross-chain communication, and automated execution. Today, Chainlink services are no longer limited to DeFi but are increasingly being adopted in stablecoins, RWA, and the on-chain tokenization of institutional assets. Official data shows that as of July 2026, the cumulative Transaction Value Enabled (transaction value facilitated by Chainlink) has reached $32.18 trillion.

Currently, Chainlink has launched Payment Abstraction and Chainlink Reserve, gradually converting Chainlink’s business growth into sustained demand for LINK. On-chain and off-chain service revenues from user and enterprise payments can be automatically converted into LINK via Payment Abstraction and continuously accumulated in Chainlink Reserve.

If more financial assets truly move on-chain in the future, Chainlink may not need to bet on which blockchain or DeFi project ultimately wins—so long as on-chain finance continues to expand, the revenue from this “toll booth” will keep growing.