Editorial Notes (vol. 24) - Top 10 sound businesses

Gm Omni frens! Have you ever wanted to see which projects in Web3 are earning the most? Or do you wonder which dApps are generating the highest revenues and how much their token incentives are?

Well, you are in luck. Last week, Token Terminal released a new dashboard focusing on revenues and earnings of Web3 projects – Sound Business Leaderboard. With the dashboard, you get a quick access to information about the most profitable projects.

In this week’s Explore Screen update, we will check out the top Web3 projects based on their earnings.

Top 10 Sound Businesses 👀 

A lot of projects are incentivizing the usage of their products through token incentives. However, those incentives eat into the generated revenues. As mentioned above, we’ll be focusing on the top ten projects based on their earnings (revenues - token incentives), to identify the projects that are actually making profits, while having notable traction in their ecosystem.

These projects span across the Web3 ecosystem, from NFT marketplaces to DeFi yield strategy providers. Let’s look at the most profitable projects over the last 90 days!

Trade NFTs on the largest marketplace – OpenSea | $35.1m

OpenSea is a peer-to-peer marketplace for NFTs, rare digital items, and crypto collectibles on Ethereum. As one of the first NFT marketplaces, OpenSea hosts the largest marketplace for NFTs by volume. It has recently expanded to Arbitrum and Optimism as well, enabling NFT enthusiasts to trade with lower gas fees.

OpenSea makes money through service fees generated whenever a digital asset is sold on its website. Since its launch, OpenSea has earned more than $800m, and in the last 90 days, been able to generate $35.1m even with the significant drop in NFT sales.

Optimize your trades across hundreds of DEXes on multiple networks with 1inch | $5.8m

1inch is an Automated Market Maker (AMM) that facilitates decentralized token swaps without requiring an order book. The 1inch smart algorithm is designed to capture value typically captured by arbitrageurs. Its algorithm gives liquidity providers more competitive returns in comparison to other AMM designs.

Each time a trade is made on 1inch, the protocol takes a small fee. Since its inception, it has generated $53.4m, with the earnings from the last 90 days being $5.8m.

Explore the largest NFT marketplace on Solana – Magic Eden | $4.6m.

Magic Eden is a peer-to-peer marketplace for NFTs, rare digital items, and crypto collectibles on Solana. Magic Launchpad helps artists launch new NFT projects on Solana.

Similar to OpenSea, Magic Eden also takes a fee when a transaction is made on the platform. By taking a 2% fee on those transactions it has been able to earn $4.6m over the last three months.

Borrow through MakerDAO to generate DAI which can be used across the DeFi ecosystem | $4.1m.

MakerDAO is a non-custodial lending protocol for stablecoins built on Ethereum. Users can access overcollateralized DAI loans by depositing assets in Maker Protocol. MakerDAO governance token holders own and govern the protocol and currently take all of the total interest paid by borrowers as revenue.

Whenever investors wants to withdraw their locked collateral in the Maker collateral vault, they need to repay the DAI borrowed, along with an annual percentage yield fee. Over the last 90 days, the earnings from these fees have exceeded $4.1 million.

Manage your assets like a pro with DeFi Saver | $600k.

DeFi Saver is an asset management application for decentralized finance protocols, focused on creating, managing, and tracking positions in lending protocols. It supports some of the largest DeFi protocols on Ethereum, such as MakerDAO, Aave, Liquity, Compound, and more, with new integrations constantly being considered. 

Over $600k in earnings has been generated during the last 90 days. The revenue comes from the fee incurred by users for using different services. For simple swaps, users pay 0.1 - 0.25% while more advanced features such as Boost, Create leveraged position, or Close leveraged position take 0.25%.

From live auctions to creating your own collections, Foundation has you covered | $414k.

Foundation is a platform for live auctions of digital art and NFTs. The platform features live bidding for various Foundation artworks, curated collections, and allows you to easily create your own artworks. Foundation is a simple and easy-to-navigate suite for NFT artists and digital art enthusiasts to participate in decentralized auctions for an array of creative pieces. 

Foundation deducts a 5% marketplace fee on all transactions – primary and secondary market sales. This way, Foundation has earned around $414k over the last three months.

Trade with zero price impact, with up to 100x leverage on MUX | $331k. 

MUX is a decentralized leveraged trading protocol. It allows zero price impact trading with up to 100x leverage, no counterparty risks for traders, and an optimized on-chain trading experience. In addition, MUX is the first multi-chain native protocol unifying pooled liquidity across deployed chains to maximize capital efficiency.

Over the last 90 days, MUX has earned over $330k by taking a small fee on each trade, with a percentage of the total fees going to the MUX token holders who govern the protocol.

Gain exposure to different investment themes with IndexCoop’s index products and leveraged indices | $285k.

Index Coop makes crypto investing simple for everyone. It offers a broad variety of investment vehicles to individuals and institutions – from token baskets to leveraging.

Various indexes hold the top tokens of specific crypto themes, such as DeFi, Data Economy, and the Metaverse. You can comfortably invest and never worry about rebalancing.

Liquidity providers deposit funds into Index Cooperative and receive a return on investment (supply-side fees). In turn, INDEX holders own and govern the protocol. They currently take all of the total streaming fees paid by liquidity providers, which has amounted to $285k over the last 90 days.

An innovative NFT marketplace with low fees – Sudoswap | $269k.

SudoSwap is a fully on-chain, gas-efficient decentralized NFT marketplace. Sudoswap lets buyers and sellers swap into customizable bonding curves created by liquidity providers who have full control over their pool’s pricing, and can adjust them at any time. Additionally, users aren’t required to pay royalties when trading NFTs - a common among marketplaces.

Like other marketplaces, Sudoswap takes a fee when people trade on their platform. Sudoswap takes a 0.5% fee on trades, making it possible for the project to earn $269k over the last 90 days.

Access sustainable yield using Ribbon’s structured products | $240k.

Ribbon uses financial engineering to create structured products that deliver sustainable yield. Ribbon's first product focuses on yield through automated options strategies. The protocol also allows developers to create arbitrary structured products by combining various DeFi derivatives. They have recently released two new products – Ribbon Earn and Ribbon Lend. The former offers users competitive yields by participating in delta-neutral strategies, while the Lend product (similar to Maple) allows users to lend USDC to institutional borrowers in order to earn 9% APY.

The vault fee structure consists of a 2% annualized management fee and a 10% performance fee. If the weekly strategy is profitable, the weekly performance fee is charged on the premiums earned and the weekly management fee is charged on the assets managed by the vault. Through that fee structure, Ribbon has been able to earn $240k over the last 90 days.