Surviving the Crypto Winter: Projects Thriving on Real Cash Flow

Introduction: Lifelines in the Crypto Landscape

In the wake of the crypto hype diminishing, what truly determines a project's ability to survive? Gone are the days when mere promises and inflated valuations sufficed. With VCs retreating and liquidity tightening, the ability to generate profit and maintain positive cash flow has become the acid test.

Some projects buck the trend, navigating this cycle by sustaining stable revenue streams. DeFiLlama data reveals that as of October 2025, the top three crypto projects by revenue generated monthly revenues of $688 million (Tether), $237 million (Circle), and $102 million (Hyperliquid), respectively. This article delves into the projects that are earning genuine revenue, focusing on trading and attention - two fundamental drivers of value in the financial world, both traditional and digital.

1. Centralized Exchanges (CEXs): The Most Reliable Revenue Model

It's no secret that exchanges are highly profitable in the crypto space. Revenue primarily comes from trading fees and listing fees. For example, Binance consistently accounts for approximately 30% to 40% of the entire market's spot and futures trading volume. Even during the bear market of 2022, Binance generated revenues of $12 billion (according to CryptoQuant). Simply put, as long as people are trading, exchanges are earning.

Coinbase, being a publicly traded company, provides clearer insights. In Q3 2025, Coinbase reported revenues of $1.9 billion and net profits of $433 million. Trading revenue contributed over half, with additional revenue from subscriptions and services. Other major exchanges like Kraken and OKX are also steadily profitable, with Kraken reportedly generating revenues of around $1.5 billion in 2024. The core advantage of these CEXs lies in their inherent ability to generate revenue through trading. In an environment where storytelling is becoming increasingly difficult and access to capital is dwindling, CEXs are among the few players that can survive without relying on external funding.

2. On-Chain Projects: PerpDEXs, Stablecoins, and Blockchains

As per DeFiLlama data as of November 27, 2025, the chart above illustrates the top ten on-chain protocols by revenue over the past 30 days.

Tether and Circle stand out as leaders. Thanks to the advantage provided by the US Treasury bonds backing USDT and USDC, these two stablecoin issuers have generated nearly $1 billion monthly. Following closely is Hyperliquid, a derivatives protocol that tops the on-chain revenue rankings. Additionally, the rapid rise of Pumpfun reaffirms the age-old principle that selling shovels is better than digging for gold in the crypto industry. Notably, emerging projects like Axiom Pro and Lighter have established positive cash flow paths, although the overall revenue scale remains small.

2.1 PerpDEXs: Real Earnings for On-Chain Protocols

The top-performing PerpDEX this year has been Hyperliquid. Hyperliquid is a decentralized perpetual contract platform with an independent chain and built-in order matching. Its rise has been rapid, completing a trading volume of $383 billion and revenues of $106 million in August 2025 alone. Furthermore, the project allocated 32% of its revenue to repurchase and burn the platform token. According to a report by wublockchain12, the Hyperliquid team unlocked 1.75 million HYPE ($60.4 million), with no external funding or selling pressure, repurchasing the token using protocol revenue. For an on-chain project, this is close to CEX revenue efficiency. More importantly, Hyperliquid is actually earning money and returning it to the token ecosystem, creating a direct link between protocol revenue and token value.

Now, let's talk about Uniswap. Over the years, Uniswap has been criticized for paltry token holder accrual, such as charging a 0.3% fee on every transaction, but directing it entirely to LPs, with UNI holders receiving nothing. In November 2025, Uniswap announced plans to initiate a protocol fee-sharing mechanism and use a portion of historical revenue to repurchase and burn UNI tokens. According to calculations, if this mechanism had been implemented earlier, the funds available for burning would have been as high as $150 million in the first ten months of the year alone. The announcement led to UNI surging 40% on the same day. Although Uniswap's market share has fallen from a peak of 60% to 15%, this proposal may reshape UNI's fundamental logic. However, following this proposal, EmberCN discovered that a UNI investment institution (possibly Variant Fund) transferred millions of UNI tokens ($27.08 million) to Coinbase Prime, potentially to pump and dump. Overall, the DEX model that relies on airdrop speculation is becoming increasingly difficult. Only projects that truly generate steady revenue and complete a closed commercial loop can truly retain users.

2.2 Stablecoins and Blockchains: Earning Interest Passively

In addition to trading-related projects, there are also a number of infrastructure projects that continue to attract capital. The most representative of these are stablecoin issuers and frequently used blockchains.

Tether: The Perpetual Printing Giant: The revenue model of Tether, the company behind USDT, is very simple: when someone deposits $1 for USDT, Tether uses this money to buy low-risk government bonds and short-term securities, and pockets the interest. With rising global interest rates, Tether's earnings have also increased. Net profit was $13.4 billion in 2024 and is expected to exceed $15 billion in 2025, approaching traditional finance giants like Goldman Sachs. Phyrex_Ni recently published an article stating that Tether's rating has been downgraded but is still a cash cow, earning over $130 billion in collateral from US Treasury bonds. Although Circle, the issuer of USDC, has a slightly smaller circulation and net profit, it also generated total revenues exceeding $1.6 billion in the entire year of 2024, 99% of which came from interest income. It should be noted that Circle's profit margin is not as high as Tether's, partly due to revenue sharing with Coinbase. In short, stablecoin issuers are money-printing machines. They do not rely on storytelling to raise money, but rely on users' willingness to keep their money with them. In the bear market, these savings-oriented projects thrive.

BTCdayu also believes that stablecoins are a good business, collecting interest from all over the world by printing money, and at the same time expects Circle to be the king of passive income from stablecoins. Blockchains: Earning Money from Traffic Rather Than Incentives. Looking at the main blockchains, the most direct way to monetize is through gas fees. The following data from Nansen.ai shows that if you only look at the total transaction fee revenue of blockchains over the past year, it is clear which chains have truly translated into usage value. Ethereum's annual revenue was $739 million, still the main source of revenue, but down 71% from last year due to the Dencun upgrade and L2 diversion. In contrast, Solana generated annual revenue of $719 million, up 26% from last year. Driven by the Meme and AI Agent crazes, Solana has seen significant improvements in user activity and interaction frequency. Tron's revenue was $628 million, up 18% year-on-year. Bitcoin's annual revenue was $207 million, mainly affected by the decline in the popularity of inscription transactions, and the overall decline was obvious. BNB Chain's annual revenue was $264 million, up 38% year-on-year, ranking first among mainstream blockchains. Although the revenue scale is still lower than ETH, SOL, and TRX, the growth in transaction volume and active addresses indicates that its on-chain use cases are expanding, and the user structure is more diversified. BNB Chain generally shows strong user retention and real needs. This stable revenue structure also provides more explicit support for the continued evolution of its ecosystem. These blockchains are like "water sellers". No matter who is panning for gold in the market, they must use their water, electricity, and roads. Although these infrastructure projects do not have short-term explosive power, they are stable and cycle-resistant.

3. Businesses Revolving Around Influencers: Attention Can Also Generate Revenue

If trading and infrastructure are the obvious business models, then the attention economy is a "tacit business" in the crypto world, such as influencers, agencies, etc. This year, crypto influencers have formed attention traffic centers. Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) active on X, Telegram, and YouTube rely on their personal influence to develop diversified revenue models: from paid promotions, community subscriptions, and course monetization to a series of traffic businesses. Industry rumors suggest that crypto influencers who are mid-tier or higher can earn $10,000 per month from promotions. At the same time, the audience's requirements for content quality are increasing, so the creators who can survive cycles are often those who gain users' trust in professionalism, judgment, or deep companionship. This has also implicitly led to a reshuffling of the content environment in the bear market, with the impetuous withdrawing and the long-termists remaining. Worth noting is the third level of attention monetization, which is the influencer funding round. This makes influencers important participants in the primary market: obtaining tokens from the project at a discounted price, taking on the task of traffic exposure, in exchange for "early chips brought by influence". This model directly bypasses VCs. An entire set of matchmaking services has emerged around the influencer himself. Agencies have begun to play the role of traffic intermediaries. Projects are paired with suitable influencers, and the entire connection is increasingly like an ad placement system. If you are interested in the business models of influencers and agencies, you can refer to our previous long article "Unveiling the Influencer Round: A Wealth Experiment Surrounded by Traffic" (https://x.com/BiteyeCN/status/1986748741592711374) for an in-depth understanding of the true structure of interests behind it. In short, the attention economy is essentially a monetization of trust, and trust is even scarcer in the bear market, and the monetization threshold is higher.

Conclusion

The projects that maintain cash flow during the crypto winter often prove the two cornerstones of "trading" and "attention". On the one hand, whether they are centralized or decentralized trading platforms, as long as there is strong user trading behavior, continuous revenue can be obtained through fees. This direct business model allows them to be self-sufficient when capital withdraws. On the other hand, influencers who focus on user attention monetize user value through advertising and services. In the future, we may see more diversified models, but in any case, the projects that have accumulated real revenue during bad times in the market will be more likely to lead new developments. Conversely, even projects that rely entirely on storytelling and do not have the ability to generate income may eventually become unknown despite short-term fluctuations.