The rise of revenue-sharing tokens is redefining the crypto panorama, bridging the hole between speculative buying and selling and tangible worth. By instantly linking token holder returns to undertaking development, these revolutionary mechanisms should not solely attracting traders but additionally reshaping decentralized finance (DeFi).
As pioneers like Aerodrome, Raydium, and Bananagun showcase the potential of aligning incentives, the stage is about for a brand new period in crypto funding — one the place sustainable development meets progressive regulatory adaptation. On this evolving ecosystem, the chance for elementary traders has by no means been extra promising.
Over the previous few years, given the existential enterprise danger introduced upon by Securities and Change Fee (SEC) enforcement actions, the overwhelming majority of DeFi purposes selected to pause all worth accrual discussions indefinitely. This resolution, whereas logical below the circumstances of the time, was massively detrimental to the trade. Many DeFi tokens with none direct tie to the success and development of the underlying enterprise have been deemed to be ineffective and underperformed the market.
The election of Donald Trump and the anticipated regulatory easing for the crypto trade has flipped this dynamic on its head. DeFi protocols now count on that well-liked worth accrual mechanisms will carry far much less related danger. Reluctant DeFi initiatives are additionally being pressured to reckon with the advantages these mechanisms have had for the initiatives courageous sufficient to implement them.
On this publish, I spotlight three purposes which have taken completely different approaches to ship financial worth again to their token holders. All three have been very profitable, seeing large good points in each the quantity of individuals utilizing their merchandise and their tokens’ costs. The success of those initiatives presents examples of doable strategies extra reluctant DeFi protocols may implement below a extra progressive regulatory framework.
Aerodrome
Aerodrome is the dominant decentralized alternate on Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 (L2), Base. In crypto markets, governance has been challenged by individuals prioritizing short-term good points over the long-term well being of the enterprise. Aerodrome addresses this with a system by which token holders are incentivized to be long-term lively individuals within the community.
To have most affect on governance issues, holders should lock their tokens for an extended period, offering them with larger voting energy. With this voting energy and continued participation in governance, this group of token holders are entitled to 100% of the income the alternate generates from buying and selling charges and bribes. This design solves the issue of making long-term alignment between token holders and the undertaking. Aerodrome’s design gives essentially the most management to essentially the most dedicated holders.

To offer you an thought of how impactful these income distributions will be, in This autumn 2024 the appliance generated $100.7M of income, for an annualized run price of > $400M. Any such design additionally creates a virtuous cycle for the enterprise, the place as quantity and revenues improve, token dividend yields spike to entry these yields, market individuals have to buy after which lock their tokens, successfully decreasing provide in circulation and benefitting all token holders.
This design and the secular development of DeFi on Base have made Aerodrome one of many greatest winners in DeFi this yr, with its native token AERO up ~13x because the token launched in February 2024. Creating long-term buy-in amongst holders and giving them direct publicity to the success of the appliance little question has performed a serious half within the success of Aerodrome in 2024.
Raydium
Raydium, a decentralized alternate constructed on Solana, was among the many first DeFi purposes to realize success on Solana after its launch in early 2021. Over the past two years, as Solana has recovered from the fallout surrounding the collapse of FTX, Raydium has cemented its place as a prime decentralized alternate.
To share economics with its token holders, Raydium implements a buyback program, as an alternative of instantly paying out charge income. By this method, 12% of all charges earned by the protocol are used to buy RAY tokens within the open market. This creates systematic demand for the token that’s instantly tied to elevated utilization of the appliance. In 2024, as meme coin buying and selling on Solana exploded, so did buying and selling quantity on Raydium, which in December was up greater than 13x YoY. Quantity development begets charge development, and in December Raydium crossed 45M RAY tokens repurchased by way of the buyback program. This quantity represents greater than 10% of all RAY tokens and circulation and has created ~$360M in purchase strain for the token at present costs.

Any such buyback program has the advantage of being extra conservative from a regulatory danger perspective, since no charges are being paid out, and creates a direct tie-in between the expansion of the appliance’s fundamentals and demand for the token. This design component differentiates Raydium and its token from its rivals on Solana, a lot of that are issuing tokens to incentivize utilization, leading to excessive inflation charges. Raydium is a good instance of how a price accrual mechanism can considerably enhance the funding case for a token. Raydium’s token delivered a +289% return in 2024.
Bananagun
Bananagun gives refined buying and selling instruments to its customers and permits them to execute these advanced methods through chat on the favored social media platform Telegram. Bananagun prices a charge starting from 50-100 bps primarily based on the kind of commerce being executed. Whereas the appliance may have stored all these revenues to pay bills and salaries, Bananagun builders as an alternative directed 40% of all charges to token holders by way of direct dividend funds.
To limit entry to this program to long-term traders, Bananagun determined that customers ought to be required to buy and stake a minimal of fifty tokens (~$3,000 on the time of writing) to be eligible to obtain rewards. As soon as these tokens are acquired and locked, customers obtain programmatic funds within the undertaking’s native token (BANANA) or ETH on the finish of each epoch. At the moment, these dividends present an annual yield of 19% to holders, making a Bananagun a bona fide income-producing asset.
Very like Raydium’s buyback, these dividends fluctuate with the entire charges earned by the appliance. As charges develop, so does the dividend yield. Whereas this technique incurs larger regulatory danger than the others we now have described, it creates a direct tie-in that makes it very straightforward to guage an funding within the BANANA token. Many traders have executed that evaluation and selected to purchase BANANA, with the token returning 218% in 2024.
The Intersection of Worth and Development
Worth accrual mechanisms alone won’t be sufficient to avoid wasting initiatives with weak fundamentals. All investments in crypto belongings assume that over time, customers and financial worth on blockchains will improve by orders of magnitude. Given this core deal with development, within the absence of development, no quantity of worth properties can save a crypto undertaking whose fundamentals are stagnant or shrinking.
There are numerous examples of purposes that have been early movers when it comes to including worth accrual mechanisms to their tokens however have been unable to maintain underlying development and due to this fact have been important underperformers. Conversely, there are additionally examples of purposes which have exhibited excessive and constant development however whose tokens don’t have any tie to that development, leaving them underperforming as properly.
One other issue that’s essential to the long-term prospects of any crypto utility is the expansion trajectory of the blockchains on which it’s deployed. Over the previous couple of years, crypto innovators have created numerous varieties of blockchain infrastructure giving utility builders numerous selections in terms of deciding what blockchain(s) to construct on prime of. Many purposes begin off being restricted to just one blockchain, because of this, in lots of circumstances, the destiny of an early-stage app will be decided by that of the blockchain. Even with the very best expertise and consumer expertise, an app that solely exists on a shrinking chain is doomed.
The very best funding alternatives in crypto at the moment are purposes that:
1) Exhibit excessive elementary development.
2) Are deployed on protocols which might be additionally experiencing a surge in customers.
3) Have some methodology to attach the worth of their tokens to enhancing fundamentals.
Every of the three tokens we highlighted to begin this piece checks all of these containers and we predict these traits are what led to them offering outsized returns to their holders this yr.
For a deeper dive into tokenization’s transformative affect on conventional belongings, learn this primer on the usage of distributed ledger expertise to tokenize real-world and monetary belongings. Revealed this week by CFA Institute’s Analysis and Coverage Heart, “An Funding Perspective on Tokenization Half I” highlights course of, advantages, challenges, and coverage implications, emphasizing operational efficiencies and sensible use circumstances.

Whereas the tokens within the graphic above characterize solely a fraction of all utility tokens traders can select from at the moment, we predict that their YTD return profile is emblematic of the desire of traders at the moment. Initiatives that fall into the golden zone we’re describing are few and much between and due to this fact have generated outsized returns. Initiatives with two of the three key catalysts described above, equivalent to Uniswap or Aave, have fallen into the center of the pack. And people who meet solely certainly one of our three standards have been left behind solely throughout this bull run.

The Vivid Future Forward
Very like in equities, it is sensible that early-stage initiatives could not wish to prioritize delivering money flows to stakeholders. But when this step is delayed or ignored, token holders could more and more low cost the token’s worth for the chance of getting no path to worth accrual. Whereas not all tokens have to implement worth accrual mechanisms at the moment, having a sensible path to monetization is essential to establishing long-term buy-in from token holders.
Underneath a extra progressive regulatory regime, the trail to monetization for crypto purposes shall be clear. This shift will immediate extra hesitant purposes to maneuver towards sharing money flows with token holders, ushering in a gold rush of alternative for elementary traders in crypto markets.