Crypto assets are entering a new phase in which revenue and returns to token holders will increasingly determine their valuations, according to Bitwise Chief Investment Officer (CIO) Matt Hougan.
In a note to investors late Wednesday, Hougan argued that the long-standing criticism that crypto projects generate little or no revenue is becoming outdated. He noted that the shift could mean many crypto assets are currently undervalued.
In earlier years, while several projects attracted millions of users and generated billions of dollars in activity, relatively little revenue was directly distributed to token holders.
Regulatory shift opens door to revenue capture
Hougan noted that this dynamic was partly shaped by regulatory uncertainty. Between 2017 and 2025, the SEC’s approach under former chairs Jay Clayton and Gary Gensler discouraged crypto projects from distributing revenue to token holders.
As a result, many projects launched governance tokens that provided voting rights without giving holders direct claims on protocol revenue. Major DeFi projects such as Uniswap and Aave followed this model.
Hougan pointed to the SEC’s legal defeat against Ripple in July 2023 as an important turning point. Subsequent developments, culminating in the case’s resolution in August 2025, helped create a more favorable environment for crypto revenue models. The change accelerated after Paul Atkins became SEC chair.
“Suddenly revenue was back on the table,” Hougan wrote.
Hyperliquid leads crypto’s revenue revolution
Following the SEC’s pushback on crypto projects, Hyperliquid emerged as a clear example of the revenue-driven model.
Its key distinction, according to Hougan, is that approximately 99% of its fee revenue is reserved for buying HYPE on the open market. The tokens are subsequently burned, permanently reducing supply.
“Finally, investors could be confident that a blockchain’s rising activity would flow through to the token,” Hougan shared.
He noted that Hyperliquid has bought and burned approximately $1.3 billion worth of HYPE since launch, helping make the token one of the strongest-performing major crypto assets.
Hougan also noted that other protocols are increasingly adopting similar models. Uniswap activated protocol fees following its December 2025 UNIfication proposal and began using revenue to buy and burn UNI.
Similarly, Aave introduced weekly AAVE buybacks in April 2025 and expanded the model through its Aavenomics 3.0 program in June 2026. The protocol has repurchased more than 1.2% of its total supply, according to Hougan.
Pump.fun has taken an even more aggressive approach. The platform began buying back PUMP shortly after its July 2025 launch and had burned roughly $370 million in tokens by April.
The trend is also reaching Layer 1 networks. Solana’s SGP-0003 proposal seeks to reduce inflation while increasing fee burns, while Aptos has raised gas fees to improve token-holder economics. These developments signal a broader change in crypto valuation.
“Outside of Bitcoin, the value of crypto assets will increasingly be defined by the same metric that defines stocks and bonds: revenue,” he added.
The global crypto market cap is $2.26 trillion as of Thursday.
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