Three of DeFi’s relatively young applications, including Hyperliquid, EdgeX and Pump.fun, have returned a combined $96.3 million to token holders in the past 30 days, as the industry’s focus shifts to actual revenue.
Hyperliquid led the pack, generating $50.95 million in revenue during the period, all of which went directly to token holders without spending on incentives, according to DefiLlama data. Pump.fun came in second with $22.09 million returned to holders of $38.81 million in total revenue. EdgeX followed with $23.26 million distributed to holders of $8.26 million in protocol revenue, indicating the platform is using reserves or alternative revenue streams to reward holders.
On an annualized basis, Hyperliquid generated $945.87 million in revenue last year, all returned to holders, while Pump.fun is $481.15 million and EdgeX is $236.42 million.
Among other major protocols, Chainlink returned $4.63 million to holders, Aerodrome $3.53 million and Uniswap $3.29 million to 44 chains. PancakeSwap generated $3.94 million in revenue, but returned $2.48 million to holders, while $905,260 was spent on incentives.
The Cryto community is now focused on revenue
The data comes at a time when outcome is becoming the metric that matters most in crypto, with token holders pushing protocols to justify their valuations through actual revenue rather than transaction volumes or network growth rates.
“No one cares anymore if your chain does 10x the TPS,” wrote Robbie Klages, co-founder of The Rollup. “The market is ‘show me the money right now.’ Treat it like a business and not a network growth thesis,” he added.
Top DeFi Protocols by Holders Revenue. Source: DefiLlama
Another
DeFi will be a backend for the onchain economy
Andre Cronje, founder of popular DeFi protocol Yearn.Finance, said that by 2026, DeFi will look less like a speculative playground and more like a functioning financial infrastructure. He noted that stablecoins have grown into a $320 billion market led by Tether and Circle, decentralized exchanges process more than $160 billion in spot volume monthly and permanent DEXs process $540 billion monthly.
Cronje added that credit protocols including Aave, Morpho and Maple Finance rely on $28 billion in active loans, while real assets are increasingly used as onchain collateral. “DeFi is no longer just competing for APY. It is becoming the backend for the onchain economy,” he wrote on X.