In the crypto world, there is no 'eternal profit myth', but there is a 'money-absorbing legend'.
In the recently concluded October, according to Dune data, pump.fun has accumulated over $160 million in revenue, with a total address count exceeding 2.4 million and a total deployed token count exceeding 2.8 million; currently, its cumulative revenue figure has reached $167.3 million. In other words, in just about 4 days, pump.fun, as the 'strongest money-absorbing machine' of this cycle, has increased its revenue by about $7.3 million, which is astonishing.
By combining various agreement revenue data from the past year, Odaily Planet Daily will classify and inventory the top 10 'strongest money-absorbing agreements' in this article, revealing the trend waves during the process of examining industry cycle changes for readers' reference.
Money-absorbing machine inventory: 42 major projects have all exceeded $30 million in revenue over the past year, mainly in 4 categories.
According to data from the DefiLlama website, when narrowing the time to within one year, there are currently 42 major projects with agreement revenue exceeding $30 million, mainly categorized into the following types:
Blockchain ecosystem: L1 networks remain the 'mainstream money-absorbing giants'
Looking closely at this list of 'players with agreement revenue exceeding $30 million', we can clearly see: in the ten-plus years of blockchain ecosystem development, L1 public chain networks remain the most mainstream 'money-absorbing giants', among which:
Ethereum leads with nearly $2.57 billion in revenue over the past year;
Bitcoin ranks second with nearly $1.323 billion in revenue over the past year;
TRON is positioned as a 'stablecoin network' with $515 million in revenue;
Solana benefited from the booming meme coin craze this year, generating $407 million in revenue;
BSC (i.e., BNB Chain) benefited from its backing by Binance exchange with revenue reaching $180 million;
Avalanche has seen explosive growth at the end of 2023, with monthly agreement revenue growing from $2.5 million to $52.25 million.
Overall, despite the extremely bumpy development path of L1 ecosystems, they remain the main 'support pillars' of the crypto world, and Ethereum's staggering $19.367 billion in agreement revenue (as of November 3, 2024) is indeed daunting. This also indirectly indicates that as the largest ecosystem in the crypto world, Ethereum is far from the 'dead end' that many people describe.
Source: BlockBeats Some representative ecosystems.
Infrastructure projects: Stablecoins, DEXs become 'money-absorbing experts'
Another type of project ranking at the top of the 'money-absorbing rankings' includes many infrastructure projects, including stablecoins, staking agreements, and DEXs, among which—
The issuers behind USDT (Tether) and USDC (Circle) rank at the top with nearly $16.17 billion and $516 million in agreement revenue respectively;
DEXs like Uniswap, Raydium, PancakeSwap are in the second tier of such projects, with agreement revenues ranging from $350 million to $820 million within the year;
In addition, staking and re-staking agreements in the Ethereum ecosystem, such as Lido and Ethena, also made the list with agreement revenues of $986 million and $136 million within a year, becoming part of the 'new infrastructure' and gaining high market recognition.
Source: BlockBeats Some representative projects.
Application projects: Wallets and meme coin platforms as 'money-absorbing machines'
As for specific application type projects, the previous 'industry hot favorites'—wallet applications and the current cycle's thematic race track 'meme coin platforms' have become the most significant 'money-absorbing machines'. Among them—
pump.fun (platform noted as Pump) ranks 16th with nearly $146 million in agreement revenue over the past year;
Source: BlockBeats pump.fun ranks 16th.
MetaMask (commonly known as the little fox wallet) ranks 28th with nearly $70.49 million in agreement revenue.
Source: BlockBeats MetaMask ranks 28th.
Expansion projects: L2 and service platforms as 'money-absorbing newcomers'
In addition to the main categories above, there are also numerous 'expansion projects' among the top agreement revenues in the past year—such as Ethereum L2 networks including Base, Arbitrum, ZKsync Era, Optimism, among which—
Base ranks 26th with nearly $73.02 million in agreement revenue over the past year;
Arbitrum ranks 32nd with nearly $56.19 million in agreement revenue over the past year;
ZKsync Era ranks 38th with nearly $36.74 million in agreement revenue over the past year;
Optimism ranks 41st with nearly $33.96 million in agreement revenue over the past year.
Source: BlockBeats Some representative ecosystems.
Service platforms are more diverse, including the former 'NFT market king' OpenSea, as well as aggregation trading platforms like DEX Screener, and various Telegram ecological trading bots like Photon, BONKbot, Trojan, Banana Gun, Maestro, etc. Of course, from the chart below, we can also see that the Solana ecosystem remains the primary focus of these projects.
Source: BlockBeats Some representative projects.
A review of the top 10 'strongest money-absorbing' agreements, showcasing the most 'money-making effect' tracks in crypto.
Based on the above information and data from the DefiLlama website, we can filter out the following representative 'money-absorbing projects' based on total agreement revenue—
Ethereum has a total agreement revenue of $19.369 billion;
Uniswap has a total agreement revenue of $5.697 billion;
Bitcoin has a total agreement revenue of $4.144 billion;
BSC (BNB Chain) has a total agreement revenue of $2.857 billion;
OpenSea has a total agreement revenue of $2.783 billion;
Lido has a total agreement revenue of $1.939 billion;
Tether has a total agreement revenue of $1.684 billion;
PancakeSwap has a total agreement revenue of $1.614 billion;
TRON has a total agreement revenue of $1.17 billion;
AAVE has a total agreement revenue of $961 million.
Source: BlockBeats Project ranking summary.
Summary: Compared to the 'version answer', steady streams are the way to go.
Frankly speaking, from my personal perspective, the back and forth of 'money-absorbing agreements' also reflects the changes in the crypto industry from another angle:
Before 2020, the most money-absorbing agreements were undoubtedly various public chains that started with ICOs, and Ethereum also emerged at that time, laying the foundation for today's $300 billion market capitalization;
During the 2020-2022 period, the Ethereum ecosystem became the 'center of the cryptocurrency industry', with platforms and projects like Uniswap, Axie Infinity, STEPN, OpenSea emerging one after another, carrying the banner of industry money absorption driven by waves of industry trends such as DeFi Summer, GameFi Summer, and NFT Summer;
In the 2023-2024 period, which is this cycle, the first was the 'SocialFi golden product' benchmarked by friend.tech, followed by the 'MemeFi MVP' represented by pump.fun, making the crypto industry's 'money-absorbing black hole' an 'asset issuance platform' that simultaneously controls liquidity and attention.
However, looking closely at the agreement revenue rankings over the past year and even over a longer time frame, the version answer is at best just a 'new entrant in the money-absorbing race', and whether they can navigate through the mid-stage of the product life cycle and ensure that they 'do not leave the table' and 'stay on the field' in the later stages remains an unknown.
Compared to countless 'one-wave' 'agreements and applications', perhaps the steady ecosystem is still the best 'money-absorbing tool'.
[Disclaimer] The market has risks, and investments should be made with caution. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions contained herein are suitable for their specific circumstances. Investing based on this is at one's own risk.
This article is reprinted with permission from: (Rhythm Blockbeats)
Original author: ODAILY Planet Daily
