• The broader DeFi sector is witnessing revenue decline where most of the platforms faced declines of over 50% in March.
  • MakerDAO was the only good performer in March with an 11% revenue surge.

The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector witnessed a massive revenue downturn in March 2025. Most of the major protocols across multiple blockchains reported over 50% decline in their revenues. 

Defi protocols generate their revenue from transaction fees, lending fees, and other service charges. The drop in revenues indicated a decline in on-chain activity, reduced trading volumes, and a decrease in user activity on DeFi platforms. 

Weak Revenues Hinting at Market Headwinds

A 50% revenue loss might reflect a potential market sentiment shift, which could lead to negative market sentiment and further outflows of capital from the ecosystem.

In March, Solana-based protocols such as Pump.fun, Jito, and Raydium generated approximately $42 million in revenue. The data revealed that March revenue was a 55% drop from February and a 75% decrease from January’s peak.

Meanwhile, BNB Chain’s Pancakeswap generated a revenue of $21 million which marked a decrease of 54% in revenue on a month-over-month basis. The trend was similarly concerning on the Ethereum-based protocols. The platforms such as Ethena, Lido, Aave, Curve, Compound and Sushi collectively generated just $24.5 million of revenue in March. Ethereum-based protocols witnessed a 52% and 65% drop in revenues compared to February and January 2025.

MakerDAO (recently rebranded as Sky) emerged as the only solo performer who witnessed a month-over-month increase in revenues. It generated over $10 million in revenue in March, which is an 11% increase compared to February. 

The broader implications of this revenue collapse are already visible in DeFi token performance. The GMCI’s GMDEFI index , which tracks tokens from various DeFi projects across multiple chains, is down 40% year-to-date. This significant underperformance highlights growing investor concerns about the sector’s immediate growth prospects as on-chain activity continues to decline.

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