Token Valuation Framework Shift: Revenue Quality, Tokenomics, And Value Return
Sources: 1 • Confidence: Medium • Updated: 2026-02-09 16:41
Key takeaways
- Athena generated about $350M of revenue last year and is trading around a $2B fully diluted valuation while its token has underperformed.
- Crypto’s regulatory and Silicon Valley appreciation is claimed to be higher than it has been in years, and some investors are returning to deals after not investing since 2021.
- Flows are rotating away from crypto as retail chases other assets and sovereign-style buyers accumulate gold.
- Liquid managers are positioned defensively and concentrated in a small set of revenue-linked tokens (including HYPE), which have been outperforming even majors.
- Expected catalysts from DATS activity (such as improving M&A or activism) have been slow to play out so far this year.
Sections
Token Valuation Framework Shift: Revenue Quality, Tokenomics, And Value Return
- Athena generated about $350M of revenue last year and is trading around a $2B fully diluted valuation while its token has underperformed.
- Many users cannot easily buy smaller app or middleware tokens, constraining demand independently of tokenomics.
- Price-to-earnings and price-to-revenue comparisons to SaaS, while imperfect, are described as useful for diagnosing inefficiencies in crypto token valuations.
- Not all protocol revenue is equal because some revenue is highly dependent on speculative flows, and current momentum is concentrated in AI rather than crypto fundamentals.
- L1s are claimed to retain an advantage via brand and memetic power plus easier access and distribution, which can outweigh app-level fundamentals in pricing.
- Legacy projects with codified but broken tokenomics face a persistent supply overhang that prevents them from attracting a bid versus new projects with cleaner tokenomics.
Venture And Institutional Participation: Leadership Changes And Mixed Legitimacy Signals
- Crypto’s regulatory and Silicon Valley appreciation is claimed to be higher than it has been in years, and some investors are returning to deals after not investing since 2021.
- One speaker disputes that the crypto opportunity set is shrinking, arguing instead that opportunities are becoming narrower and more specific.
- Kyle reportedly posted and then deleted a message implying crypto has not been interesting to him and that blockchains are just ledgers, cited as part of broader conviction loss among early believers.
- Kyle Samani is leaving Multicoin while Tushar remains in charge of the firm.
- Crypto investing is described as structurally difficult because it combines public-market liquidity with venture-style uncertainty plus unique security and valuation complexities.
- As funds grow larger, returns tend to degrade due to scale constraints, and this effect may be amplified in crypto if the opportunity set does not expand proportionally.
Cross-Asset Flow Rotation And Btc Vs Gold Divergence
- Flows are rotating away from crypto as retail chases other assets and sovereign-style buyers accumulate gold.
- Tether is reportedly favoring gold purchases over Bitcoin.
- Bitcoin has diverged sharply from gold and broad liquidity measures, with global liquidity flows benefiting gold rather than compressing back into Bitcoin.
- Competing narratives in other markets (including gold/silver, rare earths, quantum, and AI) are absorbing mindshare and capital, leaving only a handful of crypto assets likely to retain durable investor attention.
Defensive Positioning, Narrow Demand Breadth, And Alt Underperformance
- Liquid managers are positioned defensively and concentrated in a small set of revenue-linked tokens (including HYPE), which have been outperforming even majors.
- There is little investor interest in buying beyond roughly the top five tokens, and meaningful buyer interest in major L2s is characterized as effectively nonexistent.
- Liquid crypto funds have increased use of spread trades such as long Bitcoin versus short altcoin baskets, reflecting a defensive posture rather than bottom-fishing accumulation.
- Bitcoin is described as the most likely crypto asset to maintain global mindshare, while only a few others (including revenue-linked tokens and long-branded majors like ETH and SOL) may show durability.
Capital Formation Constraints And Missing Catalysts In Liquid Crypto
- Expected catalysts from DATS activity (such as improving M&A or activism) have been slow to play out so far this year.
- Passing a market-structure bill that clarifies how tokens can accrue value is viewed as necessary to unlock broad institutional demand for many altcoins.
- A start-of-year bullish thesis that redemption outflows would ease and new fund subscriptions would return has not materialized, and recent fund reconfigurations signal ongoing fundraising and deployment challenges in liquid crypto strategies.
Watchlist
- Even strong stablecoin businesses with real revenue are reconsidering whether launching a token is still the right strategic move given current public-market conditions and weak institutional bid for most altcoins.
- A portfolio company with significant stablecoin revenue is reconsidering whether launching a token is still the right strategic move.
- A potential relative-value framing is raised: long middleware/DeFi and short L1s, on the view that much of the ecosystem’s revenue and user connection is occurring at the application layer.
- Kyle reportedly posted and then deleted a message implying crypto has not been interesting to him and that blockchains are just ledgers, cited as part of broader conviction loss among early believers.
- In a crypto-heavy respondent set, most participants reportedly preferred owning Dogecoin over Stripe at stated valuations.
- Renewed quantum-computing fears are being revisited in crypto, and quantum advantage is described as applying to a subset of exponential-type problems including signature schemes.
Unknowns
- Are the claimed BTC-to-gold flow shifts (including the reported Tether preference for gold) observable in verifiable flow or reserve-allocation disclosures?
- How persistent is the reported narrow demand breadth (top ~5 tokens) across venues and time, and what would indicate broadening participation?
- Is the “convexity removed” characterization supported by market-wide return distributions (frequency/magnitude of outsized moves) versus prior periods?
- What portion of protocol revenues (including the Athena example) is durable versus speculative-flow-dependent, and how does that map to tokenholder value return?
- Do access and distribution constraints (ease of buying smaller tokens) measurably explain valuation gaps versus fundamentals for app/middleware tokens?