The S&P 500’s cyclically adjusted Shiller price-to-earnings multiple has reached 40.6, a level seen only once before, right ahead of the dot-com bubble’s catastrophic collapse.
The index’s price-to-sales multiple of 3.7 is also sitting at a record high, giving investors little reason for comfort as valuations stretch far beyond long-running norms.
Against that backdrop, revenue-generating cryptocurrencies like Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), and Hyperliquid (CRYPTO: HYPE) are drawing renewed attention from value-oriented investors.
Prices for those digital assets have struggled or declined over the last 12 months, even as their protocol revenues have climbed significantly over a three-year period.
Ethereum generated $187 million in protocol revenue during Q2 2026, up from $107 million in Q2 2023, while its price has fallen roughly 50% over the trailing 12 months.
Solana’s protocol revenue surged from just $897,514 in Q2 2023 to $264 million in Q2 2026, even as its coin price dropped approximately 58% over the same trailing period.
Hyperliquid, which was not yet launched in Q2 2023, posted $149 million in protocol revenue for Q2 2026 and has actually delivered a 31% price gain over the trailing 12 months.
The critical question for investors, however, is not just whether a crypto asset generates revenue but how effectively it routes that value back to token holders.
Hyperliquid stands out on that measure, returning between 97% and 99% of its fees into continuous open-market purchases of its HYPE token, with buybacks already exceeding $1.3 billion spent repurchasing the token.
Its current run rate implies procuring about 7% of Hyperliquid’s market cap over 12 months, a rate of value transfer that, as noted, most stocks would be embarrassed by.
Ethereum’s fee structure burns part of transaction fees, meaning holding Ether represents a claim on network activity value, but most surplus flows to apps, layer-2 chains, roll-ups, and stakers rather than holders.
New supply is minted constantly on Ethereum, directly opposing the fee burns, meaning holders at normal activity levels have seen their value diluted slightly with each passing year.
Solana burns 50% of its base fee but none of its priority fees, and since priority fees dominate what users actually pay, the offset is minimal according to data from crypto analyst Blockworks, with only 1.1% of new issuance offset by fee burns in June.
The combination of overvalued equities and out-of-favor crypto assets posting rising revenue presents a setup that value investors are likely to recognize as a meaningful opportunity worth considering.
