Waterdrop Capital CEO: Who has actually made money in this bull market so far?
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Waterdrop Capital CEO: Who has actually made money in this bull market so far?
First of all, it's definitely not VC, and secondly, it's not retail investors either.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Jademont
Who has actually made money in this bull market so far?
First, definitely not VCs. Most projects backed by venture capital haven't even launched their tokens yet. Even those coins criticized by the community for having high FDV but low circulating supply—though they may appear to have gained tens of times on paper—could easily drop 90% when VCs unlock their tokens, unless a major altcoin rally follows.
Second, not retail investors either. The majority of retail traders chase memes, speculate on alts, and trade futures. While there are exceptions, making consistent profits this way is extremely rare—about as likely as winning the lottery.
Based on observation, the following groups have actually profited:
1. Bitcoin Holders
Holding Bitcoin means the entire world works for you. From $25,000 last year to $65,000 now—an enormous gain. Reaching $100,000 within a year is highly probable, yet most people look down on such steady returns and thus fail to profit from BTC. That’s only fair.
2. Centralized Exchanges (CEXs)
Exchanges remain at the top of the crypto food chain; essentially, everyone in crypto works for them. Of course, running an exchange involves massive risks—operating overseas without a fixed base, facing scrutiny from both domestic authorities like Yancheng and international regulators like the SEC. High risk matches high reward—it's justified.
3. CeFi Platforms like Tether
Tether earned $4.7 billion in Q1 alone—more than most exchanges. Strictly speaking, this money wasn’t made directly from crypto trading. Additionally, other financial service providers in crypto are quietly thriving, such as custodial wealth management platforms. They deliver solid services and earn their profits fairly.
4. Operating Teams of Certain Blockchains / DeFi Projects
DeFi products like Uniswap actually generate massive traffic. Transaction fees go almost entirely to the core teams rather than token holders, which amounts to significant revenue. For example, Base’s team may have earned tens of millions in fees just from FriendTech. Tron earns handsomely from daily USDT transfers, with most income going to its team. These projects don’t rely on hyping and selling tokens to retail—they build real businesses, much like traditional internet companies. They represent the future of crypto and should be role models for others. With MakerDAO leading the way and UNI proposing dividend distributions, these developments are the true alpha in this cycle.
5. High-Market-Cap Token Issuers Whose Main Goal Is Selling Tokens
If they’ve already listed on centralized exchanges, these teams have already cashed out handsomely. They don’t need actual revenue—take some zk-project, for instance: after airdrops, daily active users on-chain drop to just a few dozen, yet their market cap remains in the hundreds of millions or even billions. Market makers happily help the team dump tokens. Similarly, highly centralized DeFi tokens or GameFi tokens run by small studios with almost no real users fall into the same category. These parasites continuously bleed the crypto ecosystem dry. Their operators are clearly among the winners—but ironically, I recently saw someone bragging on Twitter about how much they made from manipulating such projects. Only in crypto can such absurdities thrive.
There are others too—quant teams earning modest profits through hard work—but I won’t list them all. If you know of more cases, feel free to comment and make me jealous.
Still, based on the above analysis, one could consider building a "perpetual profit" crypto portfolio, selecting assets from categories 1 to 4, and avoiding category 5 altogether.
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