代幣何時會產生收入？喬爾·約翰（Joel John），分散。

本文提出一個簡單的問題，代幣應該產生收入嗎？如果是這樣，團隊應該回購自己的令牌嗎？

Money controls everything around us. When people start discussing fundamentals again, the market is probably in a bad place.

金錢控制著我們周圍的一切。當人們再次開始討論基本面時，市場可能處於一個糟糕的位置。

This article asks a simple question: should tokens generate revenue? If so, should teams buy back their own tokens? Like most things, there is no clear answer to this question. The path forward needs to be paved with honest conversations.

本文提出一個簡單的問題：代幣應該產生收入嗎？如果是這樣，團隊應該回購自己的令牌嗎？像大多數事情一樣，這個問題沒有明確的答案。誠實的對話需要鋪平前進的道路。

This article was inspired by a series of conversations with Ganesh Swami, co-founder of Covalent, a blockchain data query and indexing platform. It covers the seasonality of protocol revenue, evolving business models, and whether token buybacks are the best use of protocol capital. It also complements the article I wrote last Tuesday about the current state of stagnation in the cryptocurrency industry.

本文的啟發是與與區塊鏈數據查詢和索引平台共同創始人Ganesh Swami進行了一系列對話。它涵蓋了協議收入，不斷發展的業務模型的季節性，以及代幣回購是否是協議資本的最佳利用。它還補充了我上週二寫的關於加密貨幣行業停滯狀態的文章。

Private equity capital markets such as venture capital always swing between periods of excess liquidity and periods of liquidity scarcity. When these assets become liquid assets and external funds continue to pour in, the industry's optimism tends to drive prices up. Think of various new IPOs or token issuances. This newly acquired liquidity will allow investors to take more risks, in turn driving the birth of a new generation of companies. When asset prices rise, investors will shift their attention to early-stage applications, hoping to obtain higher returns than benchmarks such as Ethereum and SOL.

私募股權市場（例如風險投資）總是在多餘的流動性期間和流動性稀缺時期之間擺動。當這些資產成為流動資產，外部資金繼續湧入時，行業的樂觀情緒往往會推動價格上漲。想想各種新的IPO或代幣發行。這種新獲得的流動性將使投資者能夠承擔更多的風險，從而推動新一代公司的誕生。當資產價格上漲時，投資者將把注意力轉移到早期申請上，希望獲得比以太坊和SOL等基準的更高回報。

This phenomenon is a characteristic of the market, not a problem.

這種現像是市場的特徵，而不是問題。

Liquidity in the cryptocurrency industry follows a cyclical cycle marked by the halving of Bitcoin block rewards. From historical data, market rebounds usually occur within six months after the halving. In 2024, the inflow of funds from Bitcoin spot ETFs and Michael Saylor's large-scale purchases (a total of $22.1 billion was spent on Bitcoin last year) became a "reservoir" for Bitcoin. However, the rise in Bitcoin prices did not lead to an overall rebound in small altcoins.

加密貨幣行業的流動性遵循一個週期性的周期，標誌著比特幣塊獎勵減半。從歷史數據中，市場籃板通常發生在減半後的六個月內。 2024年，比特幣現場ETF和邁克爾·賽勒（Michael Saylor）的大規模購買（去年總計221億美元用於比特幣）的資金流入成為比特幣的“水庫”。但是，比特幣價格上漲並沒有導緻小山羊的總體反彈。

We are currently in a period of tight capital liquidity, capital allocators' attention is scattered across thousands of assets, and founders who have been working on developing tokens for years are struggling to find the meaning of it all. "Why bother building real applications when launching meme assets can bring more economic benefits?"

我們目前處於嚴格的資本流動性時期，資本分配者的注意力散佈在數千個資產中，而多年來一直在努力開發代幣的創始人正在努力尋找這一切的含義。 “為什麼在推出模因資產時會打擾構建實際應用，可以帶來更多的經濟利益？”

In previous cycles, L2 tokens have enjoyed a premium due to the perceived underlying value, supported by exchange listings and venture capital. However, as more and more players enter the market, this perception and its valuation premium are being eroded. As a result, L2's token value has declined, limiting their ability to subsidize smaller products with grants or token revenue. Moreover, the valuation surplus has in turn forced founders to ask the old question that plagues all economic activities: where does the revenue come from?

在先前的周期中，由於交換清單和風險投資的支持，L2代幣由於感知到的基本價值而享有溢價。但是，隨著越來越多的參與者進入市場，這種看法及其估值溢價正在受到侵蝕。結果，L2的代幣價值有所下降，限制了其通過贈款或代幣收入補貼較小產品的能力。此外，估值盈餘反過來又迫使創始人問困擾所有經濟活動的舊問題：收入來自何處？

How Cryptocurrency Project Revenue Works

加密貨幣項目收入如何工作

The above diagram explains very well how cryptocurrency project revenue typically works. For most products, Aave and Uniswap are undoubtedly ideal templates. These two projects have maintained stable fee income for many years by virtue of their early entry into the market and the "Lindy Effect". Uniswap can even generate revenue by increasing front-end fees, which perfectly confirms consumer preferences. Uniswap is to decentralized exchanges what Google is to search engines.

上圖很好地解釋了加密貨幣項目收入通常如何工作。對於大多數產品而言，AAVE和UNISWAP無疑是理想的模板。這兩個項目由於早期進入市場和“ Lindy效應”，多年來一直保持穩定的費用收入。 UNISWAP甚至可以通過增加前端費用來產生收入，從而完美證實了消費者的偏好。 UNISWAP是分散的交換Google搜索引擎的內容。

In contrast, the revenues of Friend.tech and OpenSea are seasonal. For example, the "Summer of NFTs" lasted for two quarters, while the speculative craze in Social-Fi lasted only two months. Speculative income is understandable for some products, provided that the scale of its revenue is large enough and consistent with the original intention of the product. Currently, many meme trading platforms have joined the club of over $100 million in fee income. This scale of revenue is usually only achievable for most founders through token sales or acquisitions. This level of success is not common for most founders who focus on developing infrastructure rather than consumer applications, and the revenue dynamics of infrastructure are different.

相比之下，Friend..tech和Opensea的收入是季節性的。例如，“ NFT的夏季”持續了兩個季度，而社交網絡中的投機熱潮僅持續了兩個月。對於某些產品來說，投機性收入是可以理解的，只要其收入的規模足夠大，並且與產品的最初意圖一致。目前，許多模因交易平台已經加入了超過1億美元的費用收入的俱樂部。這種收入規模通常只能通過令牌銷售或收購來實現大多數創始人。對於大多數專注於開發基礎架構而不是消費者應用的創始人而言，這種成功水平並不常見，而基礎架構的收入動態也不同。

Between 2018 and 2021, venture capital firms provided a lot of funding for developer tools, expecting developers to gain a large number of users. But by 2024, two major shifts have occurred in the cryptocurrency ecosystem:

在2018年至2021年之間，風險投資公司為開發人員工具提供了大量資金，期望開發人員獲得大量用戶。但是到2024年，加密貨幣生態系統發生了兩個重大轉變：

First, smart contracts enable unlimited scalability with limited human intervention. Today, Uniswap and OpenSea no longer need to scale their teams in proportion to trading volume.

首先，智能合約可實現無限的可伸縮性，並有限的人為乾預。如今，Uniswap和Opensea不再需要按交易量成比例地擴展其團隊。

Secondly, advances in large language models (LLMs) and artificial intelligence have reduced the need to invest in cryptocurrency developer tools. Therefore, as an asset class, it is at a "reckoning moment".

其次，大語模型（LLM）和人工智能的進步減少了投資加密貨幣開發人員工具的需求。因此，作為資產類別，它正處於“估算時刻”。

In Web2, API-based subscription models work because there are so many users online. However, Web3 is a smaller niche market with very few applications that can scale to millions of users. Our advantage is the high revenue per customer. Due to the nature of blockchain that allows money to flow, ordinary users in the cryptocurrency industry tend to spend more money at a higher frequency. Therefore, in the next 18 months, most companies will have to redesign their business models to obtain revenue directly from users in the form of transaction fees.

在Web2中，基於API的訂閱模型有效，因為在線有很多用戶。但是，Web3是一個較小的利基市場，其應用程序很少可以擴展到數百萬用戶。我們的優勢是每個客戶的收入高。由於區塊鏈的性質允許資金流動，加密貨幣行業的普通用戶往往會以更高的頻率花費更多的錢。因此，在接下來的18個月中，大多數公司將不得不重新設計其業務模式，以直接以交易費用形式從用戶那裡獲得收入。

Of course, this isn’t a new

當然，這不是新的