Who controls the revenue lifeline of the crypto industry? Analyzing the trillion-dollar profit pool

In 2025, the entire crypto protocol industry generated over $160 billion in revenue, more than doubling the previous year. As market focus shifts to price fluctuations, a more fundamental question emerges: where exactly do these massive revenues flow?

On-chain data reveals a clear and centralized picture: the highest revenue-generating profit centers remain concentrated in traditional sectors, with stablecoin issuers standing out the most. Just the top two alone contributed over 60% of the industry’s total revenue.

Industry Revenue Map: From Infrastructure Frenzy to Application Value Dominance

The crypto industry is undergoing a profound shift in its core value focus. In recent years, infrastructure narratives centered around public chains, Rollups, and modular solutions were the absolute core. Now, that has changed. With Ethereum upgrades significantly reducing L2 costs, various scaling solutions are accelerating deployment, turning block space from a scarce resource into a low-cost commodity. Market valuation logic is shifting from being driven by technical expectations to being driven by actual revenue.

A landmark case is EigenLayer. Although its TVL once soared to $20 billion, its token EIGEN performed poorly after launch because protocol revenue failed to provide stable returns to token holders.

When infrastructure becomes a “pipeline,” real value begins flowing toward application layers that directly serve users and create cash flow loops. On-chain data shows that since 2020, revenue from application projects has been steadily increasing, reaching nearly 80% in 2025.

Three Major Revenue Drivers: Interest Spreads, Trading, and Distribution

The revenue engine of the crypto industry is primarily driven by three components: interest spread earnings, trade execution, and channel distribution. These three together form the industry’s most core profit pools.

Stablecoin Issuance: The Foundation of Industry Revenue

Stablecoin issuers form the cornerstone of crypto industry revenue. Take Circle as an example: in Q2 2025, its total revenue reached $658 million, with over 99% coming from reserve interest income. This business model has structural characteristics: revenue scales in tandem with stablecoin supply and circulation. Each digital dollar is backed by assets like U.S. Treasuries and generates interest, creating a continuous cash flow.

This model also faces challenges: it is highly dependent on macroeconomic variables beyond issuers’ control, especially Federal Reserve interest rate policies. As rates decline, the revenue dominance of stablecoin issuers may be affected.

Market forecasts indicate that by 2026, the total market cap of stablecoins could reach $1 trillion. This growth is driven not only by payment needs but also by the rise of interest-bearing stablecoins and deeper institutional adoption.

Trading Layer: The Rise of Decentralized Perpetual Contracts

In 2025, decentralized perpetual contract exchanges became one of the most successful sectors in the industry. This sector was almost insignificant in 2024 but accounted for 7% to 8% of total industry revenue in 2025. Hyperliquid is a representative in this field. It set a monthly trading volume record of $398 billion in 2025, with open interest growing from $3.19 billion to $15.3 billion, a 479% increase.

The success of these platforms lies in creating frictionless trading venues, allowing users to enter and exit risk positions on demand. Even in periods of market calm, users can hedge, leverage, and arbitrage without the hassle of transferring underlying assets.

Channel Distribution: Traffic as a Business Model

Channel distribution provides incremental revenue for crypto projects like token issuance infrastructure. Pump.fun is a typical example, entering the market with a low-threshold meme coin issuance tool. By extracting small fees on each creation and transaction, Pump.fun generated over $300 million in revenue in 2024 and continued strong growth in 2025. At its peak, its trading volume accounted for nearly 20% of Solana’s entire DEX traffic.

This model is similar to Web2 companies: they do not hold inventory but create value through vast distribution channels. By offering frictionless user experiences and automated token listing processes, these platforms have become the preferred venues for issuing crypto assets.

The Revolution in Value Redistribution: From Governance Tokens to Economic Ownership

In 2025, a fundamental shift occurred in the crypto industry: tokens are no longer just governance credentials but began representing economic ownership of protocols. The transfer of value achieved through token buybacks, burns, and fee sharing is reshaping industry incentive mechanisms. The total fees paid by users amount to approximately $30.3 billion. Of this, about $17.6 billion remains with protocols after paying liquidity providers and suppliers. Around $3.36 billion of total revenue is returned to token holders through staking rewards, fee sharing, buybacks, and burns. This means 58% of fees are converted into protocol revenue, with some directly redistributed to supporters.

Hyperliquid has set a benchmark in this regard, returning about 90% of its revenue to users via an “assistance fund.” This “income as value” closed-loop establishes a new business model standard for decentralized trading products.

Pump.fun reinforces the concept of “reward active platform users,” having destroyed 18.6% of its native token PUMP’s circulating supply through daily buybacks.

Market Data and Price Performance

According to Gate.io data, as of January 15, 2026, BTC/USDT is trading at $96,996.6, up 3.9% in 24 hours. This price level reflects the current state of the market after experiencing volatility.

Looking back at 2025, Bitcoin’s price showed high-level oscillations. It briefly surged to $109,000 at the start of the year but quickly retraced due to market uncertainty triggered by U.S. tariff policies. The narrative then shifted to expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts, driving Bitcoin on a strong bullish trend from March to July, with prices rising from around $80,000 to near $125,000. Following the historic liquidation event in the crypto market on October 11, 2025, and a U.S. government shutdown, Bitcoin’s price continued to decline. By December, it closed at about $85,000, nearly 33% below the year’s high.

Outlook for 2026: Revenue Structure Evolution and the Rise of Asia

In 2026, the revenue landscape of the crypto industry may evolve as follows: as interest rate cuts impact interest spread trading, the share of stablecoin issuers in industry revenue may further change. Meanwhile, the rise of interest-bearing stablecoins (Stablecoin 2.0) will alter user incentives, with capital no longer idle but compounding for growth.

Decentralized perpetual contract exchanges are expected to break through current market share limitations. As trading execution layers become more concentrated, these platforms may further erode the market share of centralized exchanges.

A notable trend is that Asian developers and teams are becoming the most competitive builders. The proportion of blockchain developers in Asia has surpassed North America for the first time, making it the largest global contributor region. Asian teams possess key capabilities in the application era: rapid product iteration, strong growth and operational systems, and adaptability across cross-cultural and multi-market environments. From TikTok to Temu, these projects have demonstrated that Asian teams excel at “deep product refinement, high growth efficiency, and fast business model loops.”

When stablecoin annual settlement volume is projected to surpass Visa’s yearly processing amount and become the world’s largest 24/7 clearing network; when decentralized perpetual contract exchanges begin to take market share from giants; and when token holder earnings surpass 18% of total protocol revenue—the flow of value in the crypto industry has been permanently reshaped. Regulatory institutionalization is unlocking over a trillion dollars of institutional capital, the RWA market size will surpass $500 billion, and AI agents will have independent wallets and initiate trades autonomously. In this grand landscape, the lifeblood of revenue always remains in the hands of protocols controlling core channels and providing key value services.