Investing in Cash Cows Instead of Chasing 100x Coins: Which Projects Are Worth Dollar-Cost Averaging in a Bear Market?

Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )

Author | Asher ( @Asher_0210 )

Since the beginning of this year, the cryptocurrency market has remained sluggish. While there are occasional hot topics in the blockchain space, such as a few meme coins that surge dramatically, these trends often focus on newly issued coins that do not allow the market sufficient time for research. Once the narrative fades, prices quickly drop again, leaving most players who entered midway with more losses than gains.

Given that blindly guessing the next 100x coin is not very meaningful, a more realistic investment logic is: If you plan to dollar-cost average slowly during the bear market, which projects are still worth buying now in anticipation of the next bull market?

Rather than solely focusing on narratives, a more direct screening criterion is: Is the project still profitable? If a platform can still generate stable 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 are still present, and the project has a stronger ability to withstand market cycles. Such platform tokens may not necessarily be the most exaggerated altcoins in the next bull market.

So, this year, which already issued projects are still making money? Odaily Planet Daily will help you sort this out.

(The project revenue data in this article comes from Tokenomist and DefiLlama, using a unified revenue metric, which deducts the actual income of the protocol after allocations to LPs and other supply-side participants.)

Pump.fun: The "Shovel Seller" of the Meme Track, Profiting from Repeated Coin Issuance Frenzies

Aside from the two major stablecoin issuers, Tether and Circle, Pump.fun is the most profitable crypto-native project in the past 30 days, with revenues reaching $41.53 million.

From 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, totaling approximately $256 million in the first seven months. Pump.fun's revenue peaked at the beginning of the year, followed by a general downward trend, with noticeable declines in April and June, while May and July saw some recovery.

The core of Pump.fun's revenue comes from the continuous trading of new tokens on the platform. Currently, creating tokens is free for users, but trading during the Bonding Curve phase requires a transaction fee. According to Pump.fun's latest fee structure, the total fee rate for each transaction during the Bonding Curve is 1.25%, of which 0.95% goes to the protocol and 0.30% is allocated to the token creators. Additionally, there is a graduation fee of 0.015 SOL when tokens graduate from Pump.fun to PumpSwap.

Pump.fun's revenue still relies on the activity of memes on the Solana blockchain; when on-chain activity is sluggish, revenue will significantly decline, but it will quickly recover when interest rises. However, from a bear market perspective, being able to maintain tens of millions of dollars in monthly revenue for seven consecutive months and recently surpassing $40 million in the last 30 days already proves that it is one of the strongest "cash flow machines" in the current Web3 space.

If you believe the meme track will endure, PUMP may be more worthy of long-term attention than betting on the next meme coin.

Hyperliquid: The "Bear Market Light" of the Perp DEX Track, Continuing to Generate Revenue Despite Low Trading Activity

In terms of cumulative revenue this year, the one that has earned more than Pump.fun is the "Bear Market Light" of the Perp DEX track—Hyperliquid.

From the 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, totaling approximately $352 million in the first seven months, surpassing Pump.fun. Unlike Pump.fun's overall downward trend since the beginning of the year, Hyperliquid's revenue has not shown a continuous decline; in June, it even reached a new high of $60 million for the year. July's revenue fell to $38.4 million, and in the last 30 days, it further dropped to $29.02 million.

Hyperliquid's revenue primarily comes from perpetual contract and spot trading fees. Currently, the platform uses a tiered fee structure, with the base Taker/Maker fee rates for ordinary users being 0.045% and 0.015% for perpetual contracts, and 0.07% and 0.04% for spot trading; the higher the trading volume and HYPE staking amount, the lower the fees. The funding rate is paid directly by both long and short positions and is not part of Hyperliquid's protocol revenue.

Almost all the money Hyperliquid earns is used to buy back and burn HYPE. Currently, about 99% of the fees generated by the protocol will enter the Assistance Fund (SEC filings disclose that Hyperliquid will increase the proportion of protocol fees entering the Assistance Fund from 97% to 99% by August 2025), which is used to continuously buy HYPE from the secondary market and permanently burn the purchased HYPE.

"Can earn and continuously buy back" may be the simplest and most powerful investment logic for HYPE in a bear market.

Uniswap: DEX Leader Opens Fee Switch, UNI Finally Starts to "Receive" Protocol Revenue

In the past 30 days, Uniswap has become the most profitable DEX with revenues of $5.6 million. Although there is still a gap compared to platforms like Pump.fun and Hyperliquid that earn tens of millions of dollars monthly, Uniswap's profitability has returned to the top tier in the DEX track.

From the monthly data, Uniswap's revenues from January to July this year were $2.8 million, $3.2 million, $4.6 million, $4.5 million, $3.8 million, $5.1 million, and $4.4 million, totaling approximately $28.4 million in the first seven months. The overall fluctuation is not large, maintaining a range of $3 million to $5 million per month, with June reaching a new high of $5.1 million for the year.

Uniswap's revenue comes from the Protocol Fee charged during transactions. Currently, the protocol fee has been enabled across all pools in Uniswap v2 and some pools in v3, gradually expanding from Ethereum to multiple chains including Arbitrum, Base, OP Mainnet, BNB Chain, and Polygon. For v2, users still pay a 0.30% transaction fee, of which 0.25% goes to LPs and 0.05% enters the protocol; v3 charges a corresponding percentage of the protocol fee based on different fee rate pools.

Since the implementation of the UNIfication proposal at the end of 2025, Uniswap has officially enabled the Protocol Fee and will use the revenue for UNI buybacks (for more related content, see: After the Uniswap fee switch is implemented: Is the "report card" of this DeFi revolution sufficient?). The protocol fee will enter the TokenJar, and external participants wishing to withdraw the accumulated assets must simultaneously burn the corresponding amount of UNI.

The UNI token has transformed from a "pure governance asset" to an "asset clearly linked to protocol fees and usage." If DEX remains the fundamental entry point for on-chain trading, dollar-cost averaging UNI is now at least no longer just an investment in Uniswap's brand and status.

Chainlink: Not Chasing Trends, Serving as the "Toll Booth" for On-Chain Finance

Not relying on meme popularity or contract trading volume, Chainlink still generated $4.57 million in revenue in the past 30 days. Compared to platforms like Pump.fun and Hyperliquid, whose revenues fluctuate with market trading activity, Chainlink operates a more infrastructure-oriented business—as long as DeFi, stablecoins, RWA, and other on-chain applications continue to run, the demand for oracles, cross-chain communication, and data services will not disappear.

From the monthly data, Chainlink's revenues from January to July this year were $5.7 million, $4.5 million, $4.4 million, $5.8 million, $4.6 million, $4.6 million, and $5.8 million, totaling approximately $35.4 million in the first seven months. Chainlink's monthly revenue has been relatively stable, maintaining between $4.4 million and $5.8 million over the past seven months, with April and July both reaching $5.8 million.

Chainlink's revenue comes from fees paid by developers, protocols, and institutions using Chainlink services such as Data Feeds, CCIP, Automation, and VRF, covering on-chain basic needs such as price data, cross-chain communication, and automated execution. Today, Chainlink services are not only serving DeFi but are increasingly entering scenarios involving stablecoins, RWA, and institutional asset tokenization. Official data shows that as of July 2026, its cumulative Transaction Value Enabled (the 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. The on-chain and off-chain service revenues paid by users and enterprises can be automatically converted into LINK through 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 public chain or DeFi project ultimately wins—**as long as on-chain finance continues to expand, the revenue of this "toll booth" will keep increasing.