Which protocols earn the most revenue when activity increases?

We used LlamaAI’s improved analysis capability in Research mode to understand which protocols have durable revenue during market downturns: when Bitcoin drops and DEX volume falls, who still earns revenue?

Including protocols with at least 12 months of revenue history and over $1m in revenue, here’s what we found:

Among 227 protocols analyzed, median revenue change is -62% during the DEX volume downturn from October 2025 to May 2026, and -65% in the BTC downturn (October 2025-July 2026).

Most protocols lose revenue during downturns. But not all - for the largest 24 protocols by trailing 1y revenue, there are a few standouts:

Reserve-yield issuers earn from interest rates, not onchain activity.

Growth in underlying supply (Paxos PAXG, Ripple USD) increases reserve size and revenue earned. PAXG AUM & revenue nearly doubled during the downturn.

TCG’s like Courtyard and Collector Crypt’s revenue is a function of Pokemon cards exploding in popularity and value, revenue is up 2-3x YoY for Collector Crypt.

DefiLlama tracks fomo app revenue going back to January 2025. In October 2025, fomo monthly revenue totaled $700k.

From August 26th-October 2nd 2026, fomo earned over $700k every single day.

fomo revenue increased steadily throughout 2026, but activity increased at lightning pace as DEX volume began to return in late August. By the 4th of September, fomo’s DEX volume briefly rose to over 4% of total DEX volume. Just two months earlier, fomo’s daily share was 0.5%.

Wallets, yield protocols, trading apps, DEXs, and derivatives are the categories most affected by activity downturns.

The Services category is led by Chainlink which includes a large revenue increase starting in August 2025. Despite both activity & BTC downturns and a decrease in Total Value Secured (TVS), Chainlink revenue has remained consistent.

Physical TCG’s, RWAs and Prediction Markets all increased revenue during both downturn windows as each category’s exposure is not limited to onchain activity. All three categories have experienced exceptional growth over the last year.

It’s intuitive: when BTC rallied and DEX volume increased over the last 90 days, many categories that fell the most with DEX volume tend to rise the most when volume returns.

Interestingly, several of the strongest downturn outperformers saw revenue decreases during market strength over the last 90 days - specifically Prediction Markets, Physical TCGs and Block Builders.

There are several categories that saw overall revenue decreases during downturns but saw revenue spikes on BTC crash days. This would be considered volatility-driven revenue.

Dividing revenue on the days BTC dropped more than -4% by their own 28-day median, the following categories see outsized revenue spikes:

These protocols also tend to out-earn their medians on large up days, but typically see more revenue on crash days. Reserve-yield issuers, RWAs and CDPs are unaffected. Liquid staking protocols, launchpads and Telegram bots see decreases in revenue on crash days.

This research was conducted using a single LlamaAI chat. To do deep research yourself, try LlamaAI Research mode today.

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Schedule a call with our analyst team at DefiLlama Research for more market insights and to explore our market intelligence tools.

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