Revenue: Business Model Viability
Measuring a protocol's ability to generate sustainable revenue and capture value
What is Revenue?
Revenue is the R of STRICT. It asks whether the protocol earns real fees or income from use. The rating weighs protocol revenue, whether the business model works without token inflation, and how much of the value reaches token holders.
How the Revenue number is set
For every coin, the research step records a Revenue rating from 0 to 10 in the coin's input set, with a written rationale and the pages it cites. A report prints that rating times 10, on the 0 to 100 scale. The engine multiplies it by the Revenue weight of the coin's sector profile and adds the other rated pillars the same way. It divides that sum by the weights in use and rounds to a whole number: the result is the STRICT score.
A pillar without a rating is left out of both the sum and the weights in use, so the other pillars carry the score. It is never scored as zero.
Revenue weight in each sector profile
The engine reads one weight table for every coin. Across its 9 sector profiles, the Revenue weight runs from 0.00 to 0.24. The six weights of each profile add up to 1.00.
| Profile and sectors | Sectors (coins) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Monetary | Store of Value (3) | 0.00 |
| Network protocol | Smart Contract Platform (30), Layer 1 (34), Layer 2 (25) | 0.10 |
| Financial protocol | DeFi (142), Exchange (20), Launchpad (5) | 0.24 |
| Technical infrastructure | Infrastructure (97), AI (94), DePIN (17), Privacy (20), Identity (7), Wallet (5), Social (7), IoT (3), Telecom (2) | 0.14 |
| Payments and RWA | RWA (91), Payments (20) | 0.16 |
| Adoption-led | Meme (61), Gaming (55), Entertainment (6), NFT (10), Sports (5) | 0.08 |
| Stable asset | Stablecoin (108) | 0.08 |
| Derivative | Wrapped Token (32), Liquid Staking (37) | 0.08 |
| Balanced | Any sector without its own profile, including Other (34) | 0.16 |
Key Evaluation Factors
Protocol Revenue Generation
Direct revenue from protocol usage demonstrates real economic activity and demand.
- Total fees generated from protocol usage
- Revenue growth trajectory over time
- How revenue is distributed (burned, staked, treasury)
Business Model Sustainability
A sustainable business model can continue generating revenue without relying on token inflation.
- Revenue covers operational costs without token emissions
- Incentives aligned between users and token holders
- Competitive moat protecting revenue streams
Value Accrual to Token Holders
Revenue must flow back to token holders to create long-term value.
- Percentage of revenue accruing to token holders
- Token buyback programs or revenue sharing
- Staking rewards funded by protocol revenue
Important Note
Store-of-value assets like Bitcoin do not receive a Revenue score, as they are not designed to generate protocol fees or operating revenue. This is expected and does not indicate a weakness. How the engine treats a pillar that does not apply
Where the evidence comes from
The input set of every coin must give each rated pillar a written rationale and at least one source address. A report never lists a page of this site as a source, and neither does the count below.
283 of the 935 input sets on file cite a third-party page for Revenue. The sites they cite most often:
- defillama.com: 89 citations
- coingecko.com: 59 citations
- tokenterminal.com: 9 citations
- tradable.xyz: 7 citations
- github.com: 5 citations
Worked example: Ethereum
Ethereum is in the network protocol profile, where Revenue weighs 0.10. Its Revenue rating is 81, so this pillar adds 81 × 0.10 = 8.10 to the weighted sum. The weighted mean of all its rated pillars rounds to its published STRICT score of 90.
The rationale recorded in its input set of 15 Oct 2026:
Every base-layer transaction and rollup blob submission pays gas in ETH, with EIP-1559 burning base fees. Lower post-Fusaka blob pricing tempers near-term revenue capture.
Sources it cites
The rarity bands apply to the final STRICT score, never to one pillar on its own. They are published in full here: Rarity bands
- Legendary90-100
- Epic80-89
- Rare70-79
- Uncommon60-69
- Common0-59
Engine v5.2.0. Every figure on this page is read from the engine and the coin registry when the page is built. Latest analysis in the registry: 22 Oct 2026.