- Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan believes many crypto assets are undervalued because investors have not fully recognized their growing revenue.
- He argues token valuations could double or more as the market adjusts.
- Projects such as Hyperliquid, Uniswap and Aave are increasingly returning revenue to token holders through buybacks and burns.
- Layer 1 networks are also increasing fees and token burns.
- Hougan sees this as a major shift in how crypto assets should be valued.
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan believes the crypto market is entering a new phase where revenue is becoming a much more important driver of token value.
According to Hougan, many crypto assets are currently trading at prices that are too low because investors have not yet fully recognized how much revenue crypto protocols are generating and returning to token holders.
He believes some valuations could double or more once the market catches up.
In the past, crypto networks could generate huge amounts of economic activity without much of that money flowing back to token holders.
That is starting to change.
Protocols are increasingly using their fees and revenue to buy back or burn their own tokens, creating a more direct link between a network's financial performance and its token.
Hyperliquid leads the trend
Hougan pointed to Hyperliquid as one of the clearest examples.
The protocol generated more than $800 million in revenue last year and used around 99% of its fee revenue to buy and burn HYPE.
Since HYPE launched in November 2024, Hyperliquid has reportedly bought and burned around $1.3 billion worth of HYPE.
Other projects are following a similar model.
Uniswap is generating around $100 million in annual revenue, while Aave is targeting around $30 million in annual token burns.
Pump.fun has generated around $328 million in annual revenue and burned $370 million worth of PUMP through April 2026.
Meanwhile, Lighter has repurchased roughly 6% of LIT's circulating supply while generating around $67 million in annual revenue.
The trend is also spreading to Layer 1 networks.
Solana's SGP-0003 proposal would significantly increase its fee burn, while Aptos raised gas fees tenfold earlier this year. Despite the higher fees, transaction activity nearly tripled and annual token burns increased from around 90,000 to roughly 1.9 million.
Hougan believes this shift toward revenue capture could change how investors value crypto assets over the next 12 to 24 months, especially across DeFi and Layer 1 networks.
