How Web3 products make money

Joel John argues that as crypto valuations fall and venture funding declines, Web3 teams will need to source revenue directly from users through transaction fees, and that tokenized teams will then have an incentive to run buyback-and-burn models. He cites Polymarket and UMA, where a 0.10% bond on a $1 billion bet would translate to $1 million in revenue, and MetaMask, where swap revenue exceeds $300 million on about $36 billion in volume. He notes that Kaito buys back tokens at twice the rate of new emissions using cash flow from enterprise customers, while Ronin directs part of its fees to its treasury during peak usage. He also says that for most early-stage protocols, buybacks are probably not the best use of capital.