Token price trends return to fundamentals: These projects are worth watching
While narratives and sentiment have always played a huge role in token short-term price movements, the tide seems to be returning to fundamentals in this cycle.
Today, it is widely believed that many of the most hyped tokens captured the upside when venture capital firms signed token warrant deals. This growing disillusionment, coupled with multiple tokens issued at more than $10 billion in fully diluted value (FDV), has driven the current round of memecoin rise. While memecoins are only valuable when they attract attention, at least they don’t have a large number of tokens hidden away to be dumped on the market later.
Many of the tokens of established revenue-generating protocols have also seen bids over the past month. This is partially due to the influx of institutional interest this cycle, and there is value in keeping an eye on tokens with solid fundamentals, whether they are revenue-generating, have a majority of their tokens unlocked, or both.
This article will focus on these three categories of protocols and their tokens to determine which ones may appeal to fundamentals-focused investors. This list of 23 tokens is not exhaustive, but we think there is still a lot of value below.
Profitable and mostly unlocked tokens
Lido
Lido Finance is the largest provider of liquidity staking, accounting for 29% of the total market share, and is a key player in the Ethereum staking ecosystem. It has generated $91 million in revenue in the past year, with 100% of its tokens unlocked and 89% in circulation. Although its market share has declined since 2023, its launch of the Lido Alliance program has brought it back to the center stage, driving staking deposits to resume their upward trend. Lido survives by charging a 10% fee on staking rewards and has risen 21% in the past week.
MakerDAO
Founded in 2014, MakerDAO is a lending protocol and the issuer of the decentralized stablecoin DAI. Over the past year, MakerDAO has generated $271 million in revenue, and 92.5% of its supply has been unlocked and circulated. It significantly increases revenue by integrating RWA (real world assets) such as U.S. Treasuries and corporate bonds. Recently, MakerDAO also announced the Spark Tokenization Grand Prix plan to invest $1 billion in tokenized U.S. Treasury bond products. Maker has gained about 25% in the past week.
Ghost
Aave is the largest decentralized lending marketplace in the cryptocurrency space, with $55 million in revenue over the past year, 91% of tokens unlocked, and 93% currently in circulation. Aave plans to launch its v4 in three years, with a cross-chain interoperability protocol powered by Chainlink, allowing for instant liquidity on all supported networks. In addition, Aave plans to launch the Aave Network chain, which will serve as a hub for the protocol and its GHO stablecoin. Aave generates revenue in a variety of ways, including borrower interest, liquidations, and flash loan fees. Aave is up about 10% over the past week.
Projects that generate substantial income
Jito (JTO)
In addition to taking nearly half of Solana’s LST market share, the liquidity staking protocol with MEV boosting rewards has generated $176 million in revenue over the past year.
Athena (ENA)
Despite only launching in late February, the protocol behind Ethereum-based delta-hedged stablecoin USDe has already generated $92.7 million in revenue.
Aerodrome (AERO)
Launched by the Velodrome team in 2023, the top DEX on Base has earned $90.7 million in revenue over the past year.
dYdX (DYDX)
The non-custodial trading and derivatives protocol, which operates on its own chain, generated $55 million in revenue over the past year.
Pancake Swap (CAKE)
BSC’s most popular DEX, originally forked from Uniswap, has generated $50.7 million in revenue over the past 365 days.
Uniswap (UNI)
The largest and most popular DEX in the EVM, deployed on 11 chains, generated about $42 million in revenue in the past year.
Banana Gun (BANANA)
Last year, popular Telegram trading bots on Ethereum, Blast, Base, and Solana generated $34.7 million in revenue.
Curve Finance (CURVE)
Despite recent issues, DeFi trading platforms brought in $29 million in revenue over the past year.
Velodrome (VELO)
The DEX, launched by veDAO members and primarily running on Optimism, has raked in $29.8 million in revenue over the past year.
GMX（GMX）
The most popular DEXs on Arbitrum and Avalanche have netted $32 million in the past year.
Most of the unlocked supply
As the industry continues to mature, more and more protocols have completed their token vesting plans, releasing a majority (or in some cases all) of their token supply to the open market. Projects in this category include:
Injective (INJ)
Based on Cosmos’ DeFi L1, Injective has unique primitives with 100% of its supply unlocked and 97% in circulation.
LooksRare (LOOKS)
The anonymous NFT marketplace, known for rewarding active users with LOOKS and WETH and supporting creator royalties, is 100% unlocked and 99.5% in circulation.
Synthetix (SNX)
The decentralized derivatives trading protocol, founded in 2017, recently ended inflation and moved to a deflationary model, with 100% of its tokens unlocked and 99.8% in circulation.
Mask Network (MASK)
A browser extension focused on bridging Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, with 100% of its tokens unlocked and 100% in circulation.
Kujira (KUJI)
A survivor of the Terra collapse, Kujira spun out its own Cosmos-based L1 which has grown into a mature ecosystem with 100% of supply unlocked and 99% in circulation.
Polygon (MATIC)
One of the first ETH L2s, not only has a suite of tools for scaling Ethereum, but is also 100% unlocked, with 92.8% of its tokens in circulation.
Yearn (YFI)
The product of the 2020 DeFi summer is a set of decentralized yield products with 99.9% of tokens unlocked and 91% in circulation.
Descartes (CTSI)
Aggregate application-specific protocols, using virtual machines running Linux, are 93% unlocked and 82% circulating.
1inch (1INCH)
The leading EVM DEX aggregator has 86% of its tokens unlocked and 82.6% in circulation.
Liquity (LQTY)
A decentralized lending protocol with 0% interest loans using ETH as collateral, the supply is 97% unlocked and 96.3% in circulation.
Summarize
While it’s still early days, the recent uptrend in blue-chip DeFi protocols with significant revenues and a majority of supply in circulation could signal a shift away from hype-driven narratives and toward a focus on fundamental metrics, in part a response to disappointment with high FDVs in this cycle.
In this cycle, fundamentally sound protocols are likely to see significant returns as the bull market continues, influenced by institutional investors and their traditional valuation processes, thereby further maturing the industry and extending its lifespan.
