In TradFi, a cashcow is a business that prints money with minimal reinvestment.

In DeFi these are the protocols generating real revenue from real usage.

It's the filter worth using because:

1. TVL can be gamed

2. Narratives change every 2-3 months

But revenue comes from demand and demand doesn't lie. I always use 90d revenue here instead of 30d because it filters out noise and those one-off spikes.

But revenue alone doesn't make a cash cow. Here's the filter:

1. Net margin = how much it actually keeps out of every dollar earned 

2. Earnings trend = is it getting better or worse at keeping it

3. Compare within categories, not across (different businesses, different margins)

I ran the top 20 through that filter and got the top real cashcows.

➣ $CAKE : $57M rev, 93% net margin. Earnings +63.6% over 90d

➣ $AAVE : $33.1M rev, 82% net margin. Earnings +234.9% over 90d

➣ $COW : $9M rev, 42% net margin but earnings growth is +788.7% over 90d

➣ $HYPE: $175.6M rev, 100% fee-to-revenue retention. Revenue king by far but net earnings data isn't available to confirm true margin

➣ $GMGN: $38.6M rev, 100% fee-to-revenue retention

Remember the real cash cows aren't always the biggest revenue numbers. They're the ones 

Making money ⭢ keeping money ⭢ getting better at it every quarter