A list of the seven major crypto industries "cash cows": annual profit of US$14 billion, it is the ultimate "tax official" in the crypto world

Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Wenser (@wenser 2010)

In early February 2025, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino published a document to announce the "Tether Q4 Asset Certificate", which mentioned: "Tether's full-year profit in 2024 was as high as US$13.7 billion; the Q4 Q4 2024 profit was US$6 billion." After the news came out It once sparked heated discussions in the market. As the current overlord of the stablecoin market, many people know that Tether's money-making ability is extremely powerful, but its annual profit of nearly $14 billion is still staggering. At the same time, according to Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan, the Tether team has only 165 people, and the man-effect ratio has reached an astonishing US$83.03 million per person, even far exceeding the investment giant Goldman Sachs (the latter has about 45,000 employees, 2024 The annual profit is about US$14 billion), it has to be said that compared with traditional industries, the human-efficiency ratio of leading companies in the cryptocurrency industry is extremely impressive.

In view of this, Odaily Planet Daily will conduct a brief inventory of a number of crypto-money-making machines in this article for readers' reference. (Note: Due to the high mobility of personnel in the encryption industry and the different statistical calibers, the following data are only incomplete statistics and are for reference only)

7 Big Encryption Money-Based Machines: Tether deserves it, Coinbase is on

the list

 Encrypted money-making machine inventory list

1.Tether (USDT issuer): Profit of 13.7 billion, team less than 200 people

The world's largest issuer of USDT stablecoin, occupies a dominant position in the stablecoin market. By holding asset-backed tokens such as U.S. Treasury bonds, the number of users exceeds 400 million.

• Profit in 2024: US$13.7 billion for the whole year.

• Number of employees: 165;

• Person-effectiveness ratio: about 83.03 million US dollars per person.

2.pump.fun: Revenue exceeds US$300 million in 2024

As the most eye-catching Meme coin launch platform in this cycle, Pump.fun is also one of the most valuable encryption machines. Previously, according to on-link analyst monitoring , pump.fun had revenue of approximately 1.703 million SOLs from its launch to the end of 2024, and its total profit was approximately US$337 million based on the average price of US$198.

In addition, according to Qiao, the founder of Alliance DAO, the investor behind pump.fun, previously revealed that the pump.fun team had only 3 people at first, and then gradually expanded to more than a dozen people. We calculated it based on the median of 15 people.

• Profit in 2024: US$337 million;

• Number of employees: 15 people;

• Person-effectiveness ratio: US$22.4796 million per person.

3.Binance: The number of users exceeded 250 million, and the number of

employees exceeded 5,000

The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange has exceeded 250 million users, and the total trading volume of spot and derivatives has exceeded the $100 trillion mark.

• Profit in 2024: Not directly disclosed. Previously, $4 billion of operating assets were sold based on accounting procedures . Some community news believes that the net profit in 2024 will be approximately $6-7 billion. Here we take the intermediate value and calculate it at $5 billion.

• Number of employees: more than 5,000 people (He Yi published an article ).

• Person-effectiveness ratio: 1 million US dollars per person.

4.Coinbase: annual net profit of 2.6 billion, team exceeds 3,700 people

Founded in 2012, it is the leading cryptocurrency trading platform in the United States.

On April 14, 2021, Coinbase successfully landed on Nasdaq, becoming the world's first listed cryptocurrency exchange. According to Coinbase's Q4 2024 financial report , in the fourth quarter of last year, Coinbase's revenue was US$954 million, achieving quarterly profit for the first time in two years. By the end of 2024, Coinbase had 3,772 full-time employees, a year-on-year increase of 10%.

Profit in 2024 : US$2.6 billion;

Number of employees: 3772;

Person-effectiveness ratio: US$689,000 per person.

5. Circle (USDC issuer): The annual profit is unknown, the total number

of employees is less than 1,000

The issuer of the world's second largest stablecoin USDC focuses on compliance and institutional cooperation.

According to previous official news , USDC's circulation in 2024 exceeded US$45 billion, a year-on-year increase of 78%. So far, it has achieved USDC transactions of more than US$18 trillion; the number of users has exceeded 500 million.

• Profits in 2024: Not directly disclosed yet, the monthly revenue in December 2024 was US$132.77 million. Previously, Circle's full-year revenue in 2022 was US$150 million, and its profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization in the first half of 2023 was US$219 million. The US dollar is speculated to make profits of at least US$500 million in 2024.

• Number of employees: According to Bloomberg in June 2024, the total number of employees is about 915.

• Person-effectiveness ratio: US$546,000 per person.

6.Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy): Net profit is less than 500 million,

and the team number exceeds 1,500 people

Previously, according to The Block , Bitcoin holdings nearly doubled in Q4 2024, with quarterly operating expenses reaching US$1.103 billion, a year-on-year increase of 693%, a net loss of US$670.8 million, and total revenue of US$120.7 million The dollar, about $3 million lower than generally expected, down 3% from last year.

• Profit in 2024: US$464 million (down 7% from 2023);

• Number of employees: 1534;

• Person-effectiveness ratio: US$302,000 per person.

7.Kraken: Profits in 2024 are about 380 million, and the number of

employees is about 2,500

An old American exchange. On January 31 this year, the company's financial report showed that its revenue in 2024 was US$1.5 billion, and CEO Dave Ripley issued a statement pointing out that Kraken's revenue in 2024 was US$1.5 billion, more than double the revenue in 2023; adjusted pre-tax Profit reached US$380 million. According to reports in October last year, Kraken layoffs of 15%, affecting about 400 jobs; according to Kraken's official channel , its number of employees is about 2,500.

• Profit in 2024: US$380 million;

• Number of employees: 2500 people;

• Person-effectiveness ratio: 152,000 US dollars per person.

Summary: Stablecoins and exchanges are the best business, and handling

fees are the king

To sum up, stablecoins and exchanges are the "best businesses" in the cryptocurrency industry, not only valuable, but also profitable. pump.fun mainly relies on the Meme coin boom to make profits, while the unbreakable truth of the cryptocurrency industry is still the same saying: Businesses that cannot charge handling fees are not good business.