The crypto market has evolved rapidly over recent years, shifting from speculative memecoins driven by social hype to projects with real revenue models, sustainable tokenomics, and tangible utility. While memecoins once dominated headlines with their viral narratives and community-driven momentum, the landscape is now favoring protocols that generate consistent income and reinvest it back into their ecosystems.
Early-stage projects like Hyperliquid, Jupiter, Raydium, GMX, and Banana Gun are leading this transition by leveraging transaction fees, protocol income, and innovative token mechanisms to create long-term value for users and holders. These platforms not only capture significant revenue but also use it to fuel buybacks, staking rewards, and ecosystem growth—setting them apart in an increasingly competitive environment.
Let’s explore five standout crypto projects demonstrating strong real-world revenue generation and meaningful utility.
Hyperliquid: Trading Fees Fueling Token Buybacks
Hyperliquid has emerged as a dominant force in decentralized derivatives trading. As a perpetual contract exchange built on its own high-performance blockchain, it supports ultra-fast order execution and low-latency trading—key advantages in volatile markets.
The platform generates revenue from multiple streams: perpetual trading fees, spot trading fees, market maker PnL (profit and loss), and its unique HIP-1 Dutch auction system for new token listings. With around 60% market share in on-chain derivatives volume, Hyperliquid ranks as the largest decentralized perpetual exchange.
Its native token, HYPE, benefits from a dual deflationary mechanism:
- A portion of all platform revenues in USDC is allocated to the Hyperliquid Assistance Fund, which actively repurchases HYPE from the open market.
- Additionally, part of the HYPE/USDC trading fees paid in HYPE is permanently burned, reducing circulating supply.
According to HypurrScan data, the fund spent approximately $149 million** to repurchase **14.69 million HYPE tokens** (about 1.47% of total supply) since its TGE in December. These buybacks have already generated an unrealized profit of over **$194 million, signaling strong confidence in the token’s future value.
👉 Discover how decentralized exchanges are reshaping crypto trading with real yield opportunities.
Jupiter: Beyond Aggregation – A Multi-Layered DeFi Powerhouse
Jupiter stands out as Solana’s premier DEX aggregator, routing trades across multiple liquidity sources to ensure optimal pricing. Its dominance is clear: recent data shows Jupiter handling $3.2 billion in 24-hour trading volume—more than seven times that of its closest competitor on Solana.
But Jupiter isn’t just an aggregator. It has expanded into a full-fledged DeFi ecosystem with offerings including:
- Jupiter Perp: A perpetual futures trading platform
- DCA (Dollar-Cost Averaging): Automated investment tool
- Swap API: For developers integrating decentralized swaps
- Fiat on-ramps: Simplifying user entry into crypto
Its primary revenue driver is Jupiter Perp, which has cemented its position as Solana’s top-performing perpetual exchange despite facing competition from cross-chain players like Hyperliquid.
In December 2024 alone, Jupiter generated $21 million** in protocol revenue—a sevenfold increase from January of the same year. For the full year, total revenue reached **$102 million.
Crucially, in January 2025, Jupiter announced that 50% of all protocol revenue will be used to buy back and burn JUP tokens. Based on 2024 earnings, this equates to over $50 million annually being reinvested into token value accrual.
Raydium: Solana’s Leading DEX with Built-In Buyback Engine
As Solana’s largest decentralized exchange (DEX), Raydium played a pivotal role in the network surpassing Ethereum in DEX trading volume during 2024. That year, Solana DEXs processed over $630 billion in trading volume—with Raydium capturing a dominant share.
At its peak in Q4 2024, Raydium held over 80% market share on Solana, up from less than 40% at the start of the year. This growth was fueled by improved liquidity models, concentrated liquidity (CLMM) pools, and seamless integration with top Solana projects.
Raydium’s fee structure ensures ongoing value return to RAY holders:
- Standard AMM pools charge 0.25% in fees
- CLMM pools offer tiered fees from 0.01% to 2%
Of each fee collected:
- 84% goes to liquidity providers (LPs)
- 12% funds RAY token buybacks
- 4% goes to treasury
With $664.4 million** in fees captured in 2024, approximately **$79.7 million was allocated toward RAY buybacks—creating consistent downward pressure on circulating supply.
This automated buyback mechanism makes Raydium one of the most sustainably rewarding DeFi protocols on any blockchain.
GMX: Pioneering AMM-Based Perpetual Trading with Staking Rewards
GMX was one of the first protocols to introduce automated market maker (AMM)-based perpetual contracts—a model distinct from traditional order-book systems used by platforms like Hyperliquid or Binance.
Users deposit assets such as ETH, BTC, or stablecoins into the GLP pool, effectively acting as counterparties to traders’ positions. While AMM-based perps are less suited for high-frequency strategies, they provide reliable liquidity for retail traders and long-term positions.
Despite increased competition, GMX maintained strong performance throughout 2024:
- Captured $111 million in total fees
- Five months exceeded $10 million in monthly fee capture
- Over 64% of circulating GMX tokens are staked, representing over $145 million in locked value
A key incentive mechanism is the distribution of protocol fees to stakers:
- 30% of V1 fees
- 27% of V2 fees
This translates to roughly $30–33 million in annual rewards for GMX stakers—offering one of the highest-yielding passive income opportunities in DeFi.
Banana Gun: Veteran Telegram Trading Bot with Holder Rewards
Banana Gun pioneered the Telegram-based trading bot ecosystem, enabling users to trade tokens directly from messaging apps across Ethereum, Solana, and other chains. In March 2024, it captured nearly $9 million in fees in a single month—once controlling over 30% of the multi-chain TG bot market.
Though competition from platforms like BullX, Photon, and GMGN has reduced its market share to between 5–10%, overall trading volume across meme-centric chains has surged—keeping Banana Gun among the most profitable applications in crypto.
Revenue comes from transaction fees:
- 0.5% for manual buys and limit orders on Ethereum
- 1% for sniper trades and cross-chain transactions
Total fees collected in 2024: $57.8 million
What sets Banana Gun apart is its holder distribution model:
Users who join via referral links and hold more than 50 BANANA tokens automatically earn 40% of trading fees every four hours. This amounts to $23.1 million distributed to holders annually—in ETH, SOL, or BANANA (the latter funded by secondary market buybacks).
Additionally, active traders receive small BANANA rewards through the Banana Bonus program—fostering a feedback loop where traders become holders and vice versa.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What makes a cryptocurrency project have "real revenue"?
A: Real revenue refers to income generated through actual usage of a protocol—such as trading fees, service charges, or licensing—rather than speculative inflows or token sales.
Q: Why are buybacks and staking rewards important?
A: They align incentives between users and token holders by returning value directly to participants, increasing scarcity, and encouraging long-term holding.
Q: Are these projects safer than memecoins?
A: Generally yes. Projects with transparent revenue streams, audited codebases, and clear utility tend to offer more predictability than purely speculative memecoins driven by social trends.
Q: How can I verify a project’s revenue claims?
A: Use trusted analytics platforms like DeFiLlama, HypurrScan, or Syndica to review on-chain fee data and treasury activity.
Q: Is high transaction fee always good?
A: Not necessarily. High fees can indicate profitability but may deter users if not balanced with performance and user experience.
👉 Explore top-performing DeFi platforms with verifiable income and growing ecosystems.