Onchain activity becomes a Web3 business when a service solves a real problem—such as settlement, trading, lending, or coordination—and captures value through fees, spreads, interest, issuance, or service charges. A transaction recorded on a blockchain is not, by itself, proof of useful demand, revenue, or a durable business.
What is the Web3 economic stack?
The Web3 economic stack is the set of services that takes a user from access to a blockchain through execution and settlement to an application that delivers something useful. Each layer can enable activity, charge for a service, or support another layer’s business model. The value chain is not automatic: activity can be subsidized, costly to serve, or economically unimportant, and revenue at one layer does not necessarily flow to another.
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It helps to distinguish three things: activity is what users and programs do; revenue is what a service collects; and value capture is who ultimately receives or benefits from that revenue after costs and other claims. A high transaction count alone establishes none of the latter two.
How does a user move through the stack?
1. A wallet provides access
A wallet is the user’s interface for authorizing transactions and interacting with onchain applications. It may help users send and receive assets, connect to applications, and manage the credentials needed to authorize activity. Consensys and YouGov’s 2024 global survey, published 10 December 2024, found that sending and receiving transactions with a Web3 wallet was the most commonly reported wallet activity. That finding describes reported use; it does not establish that a particular custody setup is right for every user.
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Wallets are an access route, not the business model for everything users do next. A wallet provider might charge for a service or earn revenue from related activity, but the economics depend on the actual product and its terms. Using Web3 does not inherently require a hardware wallet or any particular custody method.
2. Blockchain infrastructure executes and records activity
When a user submits an action, blockchain infrastructure processes it, updates shared state, and provides a record that other applications can use. Validators and other infrastructure participants may receive compensation under a network’s rules. Applications may also pay costs to use a network and pass some or all of those costs to users.
Execution and settlement make applications possible, but infrastructure activity is not equivalent to an application business. Costs, reliability, capacity, and the way compensation is distributed all affect the economics. A recorded transaction may be one step in a valuable service—or merely a programmatic event with little independent economic significance.
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Stablecoins can serve as a settlement layer across payments, trading, collateralization, and treasury operations. In practical terms, a stablecoin can be used to move value between participants or applications, post collateral, or hold funds for later use. The same asset may therefore support several kinds of activity across the stack.
That usefulness does not make every stablecoin transfer a retail payment or prove that a stablecoin issuer, application, or network earned revenue from it. The economic result depends on the service around the transfer, who bears its costs, and which entity—if any—captures a fee or other benefit. DefiLlama Research’s State of DeFi 2025, published 23 December 2025, describes stablecoins as a settlement layer connecting these uses.
How do Web3 companies make money?
The mechanism depends on what a service does. The table describes common economic roles conceptually; it does not imply that every protocol or provider in a category earns revenue, or that its revenue reaches tokenholders.
| Service or layer | Value delivered | Possible economic mechanism | What to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trading | Execution and access to markets or liquidity | Transaction fees or a spread between quoted prices | Whether the charge is recurring, who receives it, and whether activity continues without incentives |
| Lending and credit | Access to credit against collateral, or a place to supply capital | Interest, fees, or other charges defined by the service | How collateral and risk are managed, who bears losses, and how collected amounts are distributed |
| Stablecoin settlement and transfer | Movement and settlement of value, including use in trading, collateral, and treasury operations | Any fee or service economics attached to the transfer or surrounding service | Whether a transfer is evidence of useful demand, who charges for the service, and whether the metric counts gross or adjusted activity |
| Token issuance and launch services | Tools or services for creating and distributing tokens and supporting related market activity | Issuance or service charges, where charged | Whether the service has repeat demand and whether launch activity persists after initial attention or incentives |
| DAO governance and treasury functions | Coordination, decision-making, and management of shared resources | Service charges or treasury-level economics, where established | What the organization actually provides, how decisions are implemented, and who controls or benefits from treasury resources |
Trading: fees and spreads
A trading service can earn from a fee charged on a transaction or from a spread incorporated into the price offered to a user. These are distinct mechanisms: a visible fee is not the only possible cost, and a large volume of trades does not by itself show the amount retained by the service. To evaluate the business, identify the charge, the recipient, and costs required to provide execution and liquidity.
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A lending service connects capital with borrowers or users seeking credit against collateral. Interest or fees may create revenue, but gross amounts collected do not explain how much is retained, how risk is allocated, or whether the service remains viable through changing market conditions. A credible account of the economics must include risk controls and the claims of capital providers as well as the operator’s role.
Stablecoin use: settlement is an enabler, not a business verdict
Stablecoin activity can support several services at once, from transfers to trading and collateral. That makes it an important connective layer, but the same transfer can be counted in different ways or serve different purposes. A volume figure should therefore be read as a defined measure of flows, not as revenue or a direct count of customers.
Token launches: issuance is not the same as lasting demand
Token issuance services may help create, distribute, or support markets for tokens. An initial launch can generate activity without demonstrating repeat use or sustainable economics. The key question is whether the service solves a continuing problem and captures revenue after launch-related attention or incentives subside.
DAOs: governance and treasury do not guarantee value capture
A decentralized autonomous organization may coordinate decisions or manage a treasury, but those functions alone do not establish a recurring business. Examine the service delivered, the authority to make and execute decisions, and the relationship between treasury resources and any claimed revenue. Governance participation or token ownership should not be treated as proof that holders receive business income.
Who captures the economics?
Different participants can contribute to the same activity while receiving different forms of compensation. An application operator may collect user fees; validators or infrastructure providers may receive network compensation; liquidity providers may earn amounts associated with supplying liquidity; and users may benefit from a service without receiving revenue. Tokenholders may have governance rights or other token-specific roles, but protocol fees do not automatically accrue to them.
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To follow the money, trace the path from a user’s payment or other economic contribution to the recipient, then account for operating costs, network costs, incentives, and other claims. If a project reports revenue, ask whether the figure is gross or net, what entity collected it, and whether the stated value is distributed, retained, or used to subsidize activity. If those answers are unclear, the headline figure cannot establish who captures the economics.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why onchain activity metrics can mislead
Blockchain data records transactions and contract activity, but analysts must decide what to count, how to aggregate it, and which events have economic meaning. Those choices can materially change the result. The Bank for International Settlements’ 2026 working paper, Hidden by complexity? Measuring stablecoin, crypto and decentralised finance ecosystems, says: “Our findings suggest that on-chain indicators should be treated as noisy approximations rather than direct measures of economic activity.”
The BIS paper reports that its researchers classified 13 million active contracts, including about 1.4 million tokens. It identifies economically meaningful aggregation of Bitcoin transaction values, proliferation of contracts, and differences in stablecoin use across chains as measurement challenges. It also reports that Bitcoin transaction values can vary by up to a factor of six across measurement approaches. These findings show why a metric needs its methodology and scope alongside the number.
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Stablecoin volume illustrates the distinction. In its 2025 State of Crypto: The year crypto went mainstream, a16z crypto estimated $9 trillion in adjusted stablecoin transaction volume over the prior 12 months, up 87% year over year. The estimate uses an adjustment intended to filter bots and other inflationary activity; it is a16z’s estimate, not a universally accepted measure. The report distinguishes that adjusted figure from larger gross volume and cautions that gross transaction volume represents financial flows, so it is not directly comparable to retail card payments.
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How to evaluate whether an onchain business is durable
Compare a business model across the service it delivers, how it earns, where the money goes, and whether users return without being paid to do so. DefiLlama Research’s 2025 report describes uneven outcomes across sectors: some developed into more durable financial businesses, while others struggled to sustain product-market fit when incentives faded and risk was repriced. It points to reliable execution, credible risk controls, and clear economic models as characteristics associated with systems that retained activity and revenue.
- Value delivered: Does the service provide settlement, execution, credit, liquidity, issuance, or coordination that users need?
- Revenue mechanism: Is there a clearly identified fee, spread, interest stream, or service charge? Is it recurring, or dependent on short-lived activity?
- Value capture: Which entity receives the revenue, what costs and claims reduce it, and is any distribution to tokenholders actually established?
- Durability: Do users return when incentives decline? Are execution reliability and risk controls credible for the service being offered?
- Measurement quality: Are the period, chain coverage, exclusions, and adjustment method stated? Does the metric describe economic activity, revenue, or only recorded events?
A checklist for reading onchain metrics
Before treating a transaction, volume, or contract count as evidence of business performance, establish what the metric does and does not measure:
- Define the metric. Determine whether it counts transactions, active addresses, contracts, transfers, volume, fees, or revenue. Those measures are not interchangeable.
- State the period and chain scope. Identify the dates covered and which networks are included. A figure without these boundaries is difficult to compare.
- Check exclusions and adjustments. Find out whether the calculation removes bots, repeated or internal transfers, or other activity, and how those choices are made.
- Separate gross from adjusted activity. A larger gross flow total is not necessarily a better measure of organic use; read the methodology attached to the figure.
- Compare revenue and costs where available. Activity can support a service without producing durable revenue. Look for who collects the revenue and what it costs to provide the service.
These distinctions turn “How does onchain activity make money?” into a more useful question: what service does the activity support, how is that service paid for, and who retains value after costs and incentives?
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