Token valuation

Ignas

2026-09-28 15:00:22

Ignas says fewer than 20 quality tokens have strong revenue backing, calls for more TGEs

DeFi researcher Ignas said in a post on X that the number of crypto tokens with meaningful revenue support remains very small, estimating that only about 20 projects generate more than $50,000 in daily income for token holders. He argued that this scarcity could push more capital and attention toward a limited group of projects, and said that is why he wants to see more revenue-producing protocols launch token generation events, including Polymarket. Ignas added that the list becomes even shorter once valuation, token unlock schedules, and the durability of revenue are taken into account. Some tokens may appear attractive at first glance, he said, but their market cap to fully diluted valuation ratio is not compelling, leaving investors to bet that demand growth will outpace the increase in supply from unlocks. In those cases, he said, some tokens may be better suited for trading than for long-term holding. He also argued that most token investing is still driven by narrative and market sentiment, while recent DAO shutdowns show that decentralized accountability remains limited.

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crypto market

2026-09-22 03:51:07

Crypto Protocols Are Making Money, but Many Tokens Still Fall as 2026 Revenue Rankings Expose Valuation Gaps

CoinGecko’s 2026 revenue ranking shows that crypto issuers outside stablecoins generated $3.4 billion in revenue over the first eight and a half months of the year, with the top 15 accounting for 56% of the total. The headline figures are striking, but the token market tells a different story. Hyperliquid and Pump.fun led the list with $429 million and $322 million in revenue, while trading terminals Axiom Pro and GMGN also ranked near the top, highlighting how user traffic and trading interfaces are capturing a growing share of fees. At the same time, several high-revenue names either have no token tied to that cash flow or generate income through structures that do not accrue to token holders. The divergence is also visible in market performance: HYPE rose about 218% and PUMP gained about 83.6% year to date, while Sky was up just 0.8%, Aave fell 17.8%, and WLFI dropped more than 61%. The article argues that revenue alone is a weak shortcut for valuation unless investors also examine how that revenue is earned, where it flows, whether token holders share in it, and how dilution from high fully diluted valuations and token unlocks affects the market.

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Token Launche

2026-09-20 10:31:28

GSR says lower launch valuations and broader token distribution may break the post-listing slide

A new study from crypto trading and market-making firm GSR argues that the industry’s low-float, high-fully diluted valuation token launch model has repeatedly produced weak post-listing performance. Drawing on a dataset covering more than 2,300 token listings on major exchanges since 2013, the report says the median token falls below its listing price within three days and is down 50% within 90 days. For tokens that listed at a fully diluted valuation above $1 billion, the median one-year return was -81%, leaving the median invested dollar worth $0.19 after 360 days. GSR links the pattern to a structure in which only a small share of supply trades at launch, allowing modest demand to support a high headline valuation before scheduled unlocks add supply into the market. The report also says the same broad setup has appeared in public equities, where companies stay private longer and list only a limited portion of shares. As alternatives, GSR points to lower public entry valuations, higher initial circulating supply, and wider public access through channels such as public sales, on-chain auctions, reputation-based allocations, and co-investment platforms. It also notes that Europe’s MiCA framework and the draft U.S. CLARITY Act could make direct public token sales more feasible.

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Kamino Financ

2026-09-16 02:33:33

Kamino’s New York push puts KMNO’s RWA case under focus

Kamino Finance announced two major moves on Sept. 15: it appointed Yieldstreet co-founder Michael Weisz as CEO and set up a New York headquarters with roughly 20,000 square feet of office space, alongside plans to hire a CFO and a head of legal. The shift points to a broader repositioning, from a Solana-based DeFi lending protocol toward an institutional-facing on-chain credit marketplace. For KMNO holders, the question is not just whether Kamino can expand into real-world assets. It is whether that business can generate meaningful net revenue and whether any of that value can reach token holders. DeFiLlama data cited in the source shows Kamino posted about $10.69 million in total protocol revenue in Q2 2026, with roughly $1.58 million in net protocol revenue after payouts to depositors and LPs. Meanwhile, PRIME, Kamino’s main RWA product, drew more than $600 million in deposits in 107 days. Still, KMNO currently offers governance rights and staking-based points boosts, with no public fee-sharing, buyback, or burn mechanism. That leaves the token’s valuation tied to whether RWA growth becomes real income rather than just TVL, and whether protocol economics are eventually redesigned to pass that income through.

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Market Analys

2026-09-14 07:03:28

From Public Value to Token Value: Why Crypto Still Lacks the Bridge, the Metrics and the Ledger

A TechFlowPost opinion essay argues that crypto’s biggest capital problem in 2026 is not a lack of money, but a lack of shared measurement tools, reporting standards and value-capture mechanisms for public goods. The piece contrasts booming segments such as real-world assets, stablecoins, ETFs, meme tokens and prediction markets with a quieter deterioration in the funding base for open-source tools, security research, DeSci projects and other infrastructure that the industry depends on. It points to the Ethereum Foundation’s retrenchment, Gitcoin’s token collapse, Helium Mobile’s acquisition, VitaDAO’s mismatch between research cycles and token liquidity, and Friend.tech’s collapse as signs that social value is often created without finding a durable path into protocol or token value. The article reviews existing frameworks from traditional finance and impact investing, including ESG, ESGN, GRI, IRIS+, SROI and Digital Public Goods standards, and argues that crypto has failed to build a comparable disclosure and pricing language for projects whose revenue can be zero but whose ecosystem value remains substantial. It then proposes a six-layer framework that runs from economic value and public value to attribution, protocol capture, token capture and market calibration, while warning about impact washing, subjective shadow pricing, governance capture, fake transparency and lagging market recognition.

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Policy Regula

2026-09-12 10:40:00

Bankless maps a new token playbook, from VVV to HYPE, as revenue and buybacks take center stage

A Bankless podcast featuring Relayer Capital founder and managing partner Austin Barack argues that crypto investors may need a different framework for the next repricing cycle. Instead of asking which infrastructure narrative comes next, Barack focused on whether applications have real demand, whether revenue can keep compounding, and whether that value reliably flows back to token holders through buybacks or burns. The discussion centered on Venice, Hyperliquid, Pump.fun, and ether.fi. Venice was presented as an example of an AI application pairing subscription growth with token burn mechanics, though Barack said his $43.9 price model for VVV depends on optimistic assumptions, including the rollout of Minds and a higher burn rate. Pump.fun, in his view, may be discounted because the market doubts the durability of meme-coin trading demand, even after more than two years of resilient revenue. Hyperliquid, by contrast, commands a richer multiple because its trading business and buyback engine can expand alongside renewed market activity. Barack also argued that ether.fi may be mispriced because investors still view it mainly as a restaking protocol, even though more than 65% of its business now comes from Neo Bank products such as card payments and lending. Still, the show stressed that token buyback multiples are not the same as equity P/E ratios, since token holders often lack a clear legal claim on residual profits or assets.

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Pump.fun

2026-09-11 08:40:38

Analyst sees PUMP at $0.0108-$0.0205 as Pump.fun revenue outpaces valuation

A research note by analyst shaunda devens argues that PUMP, the token tied to Pump.fun, is trading at a steep discount to the business behind it. The report says Pump.fun is generating annualized revenue of $677 million while trading at a price-to-sales ratio of just 2.8x, even as its weekly revenue volatility sits at 29.7%, the lowest among the top 10 protocols cited in the study. Based on a weighted scenario model, the note assigns a target range of $0.0108 to $0.0205 for PUMP, versus $0.0047 on Sept. 9, implying 2.3x to 4.4x upside. The study centers on two claimed market misreadings: concern that token holders may not capture enough value from the business, and a broader tendency to price PUMP like a generic meme-coin proxy rather than on Pump.fun’s own revenue profile. It also reviews the platform’s dominance in Solana meme-coin issuance, the growth of its front-end products such as Terminal and its mobile app, token buybacks and burns, insider unlock activity, and rising competitive pressure from Pons and StonkFun.

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PUMP

2026-09-11 05:04:31

Analyst says PUMP may be undervalued in the short term, but its long-term value capture remains unclear

Blockworks analyst Shaunda Devens examined whether PUMP should be seen as undervalued or fundamentally lacking value, and argued that the market may be underpricing PumpFun’s business fundamentals while still failing to resolve the token’s long-term value capture problem. According to the analysis, PumpFun is generating roughly $677 million in annualized revenue and PUMP is trading at about 2.8x price-to-sales, below comparable revenue-linked tokens. PumpFun also directs 50% of protocol revenue to programmatic buybacks and burns, which at current revenue and price levels would equal roughly 17.6% of circulating supply repurchased per year. In addition, about 77% of tokens allocated to the team and investors remain unmoved, a factor that could ease short-term supply pressure from insider selling and unlocks. Still, the token’s official documents state that PUMP does not represent equity in PumpFun and gives holders no rights to revenue, profit, dividends, or cash flow. PumpFun’s roughly $2 billion treasury belongs to Baton Corp rather than PUMP holders, and the current buyback arrangement is set to expire in April 2027 unless extended.

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