727 FinanceIncome is important, but who ultimately pockets that income matters even more.
Written by: Blockworks Research
Compiled by: Bitpush
It should be a given, but the crypto market is finally starting to accept this fact: businesses that can generate revenue are the best investments. Crazy, right? This has been the standard practice in traditional financial markets for over a hundred years. It took us 17 years to figure it out.
However, in crypto, having revenue-generating businesses alone is not enough. We also need value accrual for token holders. Because unlike traditional finance, token holders do not have any guaranteed rights or protections. We do not have a legal structure that guarantees token holders a share of business revenue or company equity during an acquisition. Not only that, but many crypto protocols have both equity and tokens, further pushing token holders into a subordinated share.
So when I look for potential investment opportunities, I want not only a revenue-generating business, but also a business where token holders have rights and structural value accrual.
To make my search easier, over the past 6 months we have been developing a framework specifically for token holders to evaluate value accrual in crypto assets. In addition, we used Blockworks MCP to build an interactive dashboard that scores tokens based on metrics. Below are the top 5 tokens selected, which both generate revenue and have strong holder economics (as always, this is not investment advice).
Quick note: these are tokens that generate revenue and have holder value accrual. This does not necessarily mean they are cheaply valued right now, or that they are good investments.
HYPE (the undisputed No. 1)
Revenue: $773 million annualized (trailing 30 days as of October 28), fee revenue $979 million. So about 79% of fees are revenue.
Holder economics: All of this revenue, including about $140 million per year from the Hyperliquid stablecoin reserve (AQAv2) yield program, goes into the assistance fund, which buys HYPE and sends it to an address with no private key (basically a burn). So holders do not receive payments in cash. Instead, every HYPE they hold becomes a larger share of the supply, without needing to stake.
The buyback is hardcoded into Hyperliquid's chain (only a validator vote or upgrade can change it). The number I care about most is: dilution-adjusted accumulated yield (DAAY), which is the crypto version of the net payout yield used by equity investors. It is the percentage of token value that holders receive per year in payouts, minus how fast new supply dilutes them. HYPE's DAAY is 0.29% (2.07% accumulated yield minus 1.78% staking rewards), because the new HYPE paid to stakers offsets most of the buyback.
SKY
Revenue: $162 million annualized (trailing 30 days as of October 28), fee revenue $346 million. Sky reports annualized total revenue of about $429 million, but most of that first goes to USDS savers.
Holder economics: Sky's profit (about $130 million per year) is what remains after paying USDS savers, Prime Agents, and operating expenses. Half of that profit goes into the reserve until it reaches $150 million. The other half—about $61 million per year based on the September payout—goes to holders. Sky uses part of it to buy SKY on the market and gives those tokens as rewards to stakers, with the rest paid to stakers in USDS.
Only a small portion of the purchased SKY is burned, so to actually receive payouts, you must stake. This is about 14% of total revenue, with a DAAY of 3.8% (3.98% accumulated yield minus 0.18% net issuance). Holder accrual depends on governance, which decides the allocation ratio, can change it at any time, and has already cut holder payouts once to build the reserve.
CAKE
Revenue: $48 million annualized (trailing 30 days as of October 28), fee revenue $145 million.
Holder economics: Every week, about 22% of fees (about $32 million per year) are converted into CAKE and burned. No staking or locking required. Every holder benefits because every CAKE becomes a larger share of a shrinking supply (37 consecutive months of net deflation, -0.70% in September alone). DAAY is 2.2% (4.8% accumulated yield minus 2.55% for newly minted CAKE as liquidity provider rewards), which is somewhat conservative because the team's own burn report is higher.
The economics are strong because the fee allocation is written into the pool contracts. But the weakness is that the team still executes the weekly burn itself, so it depends on them doing it. In addition, The Flip (passed on October 24) cut the protocol's fee share from its newer pools (v3 and Infinity) from about one-third to 12%, and roughly halved emissions. So that means fewer burns, but also less dilution.
AERO
Revenue: $92 million annualized (trailing 30 days as of October 28, Aerodrome and Velodrome combined), fee revenue $134 million.
Holder economics: AERO pays holders most directly. To receive 100% of a pool's revenue (about 69% of all fees, paid as fees rather than burns), holders must lock their AERO and direct emissions to the pool. Payouts are hardcoded, but only reach lockers, while emissions dilute everyone. That equates to a 6.2% accumulated yield, but emissions over the past year were 12.4%, so DAAY is -6.2%.
The October 22 merger made emissions adaptive (capped at about 1.2x pool revenue), and ended rebase (minting new AERO to lockers to offset dilution) and bribes (paying fees to lockers to direct emissions to a pool). At an 8% emission rate, DAAY would be -1.8%, so emissions need to fall below about 6% to turn positive.
UNI
Revenue: $87 million annualized flowing to holders (trailing 30 days as of October 28), fee revenue $1.04 billion. So holders receive only about 8% of Uniswap fees.
Holder economics: The fee switch is active on v2, v3, and v4 across seven chains, and all fees are used to buy and burn UNI. Like HYPE and CAKE, holders do not receive cash; every UNI simply becomes a larger share of the supply, without needing to stake. This is a 1.9% accumulated yield.
But Uniswap Labs' $20 million UNI per year growth budget from the treasury adds 3.2% new supply, so DAAY is -1.3%. Expanding fees to more pools and chains still requires governance votes, and holders also vote on the size of fees. So with each vote, governance can increase or cut holder payouts.
So, revenue matters, but who the revenue actually goes into the pockets of matters more. Crypto took 17 years to figure out the first half; hopefully the second half will not take another 17.