2025 Survival Rules for Petting Cats: Once a Land of Gold, Now Relying on These Two Trump Cards

Author: Asher, Odaily Planet Daily

As 2025 is about to end, as the one who "loves to talk about yield farming and loves to write about interactions" among the authors of Odaily Planet Daily, it's time to summarize the year in yield farming.

After clearing out the Meme coin section of the on-chain AI Agent at the beginning of the year, I spent most of my time on various popular interaction projects, trying out all the popular projects I could farm, and of course, I didn't miss out on the pitfalls either. As the end of the year approaches, I've had many discussions with friends who are equally enthusiastic about yield farming, summarizing the changes in this year's landscape. Because of this, I deeply feel that yield farming in 2025 has quietly shifted from "everyone mining for gold" to "collective retreat."

Yield Farming Profits Plummet, Studios Exit Collectively

Looking back at 2025, the yield farming track has rapidly fallen from "wealth myths" into "winter involution." Big yields have disappeared, small yields have shrunk, and "being counter-farmed" has become the norm. This year, the most commonly heard phrase among yield farmers directly reveals this change: "Small yields are only 5 to 10 dollars, and the Gas fees for claiming airdrops are more expensive than the coins; in the past, over 10% of non-locked airdrop rewards, now only 2 to 3% remain, and they have to be unlocked in batches."

The sharp decline in profits has directly triggered a mass exit from studios. "From once casually farming for money to now not even being able to cover the basic salaries of the team. It's not that we aren't trying hard; it's just that the door of the times has quietly closed." Interviews conducted by Odaily Planet Daily revealed that many teams are either shutting down or shifting to more controllable businesses like cross-border e-commerce; the few remaining teams are barely surviving on Binance Alpha's daily "certain airdrop" to scrape by. However, the significant drop in the value of Binance Alpha's airdrop tokens throughout November may lead to a second wave of concentrated exits for studios in the short term.

Even more absurdly, this year, many studios' biggest source of profit is not token airdrops, but hardware hoarding. A friend from a studio joked, "I didn't make much from yield farming this year; instead, the memory sticks I hoarded in February went from 55 yuan to 240 yuan, making them the most profitable investment of the year."

Yield farming has shifted from "wealth myths" to "winter involution"

No Altcoin Market, The Root Cause of Declining Yield Farming Profits

Yield farming profits essentially depend on the subsequent performance of airdrop tokens, and the amplification of airdrop value often relies on the tailwind of "altcoin season"—that golden window when altcoins collectively rotate and skyrocket. However, throughout 2025, the crypto market has been trapped in a prolonged pattern dominated by BTC, with altcoins generally sluggish. According to on-chain data, BTC's market cap share has continued to rise, peaking at 63% this year. BTC's dominance means liquidity is not spilling over, altcoins are not rotating, and new projects find it harder to gain momentum—without price amplifiers, airdrop values cannot rise, and yield farming profits are destined to weaken.

BTC Market Cap Share

This "no altcoin market" situation directly strikes at the core pain point of yield farming—the Gas fees, time, and resources invested upfront often yield tokens that start low and continue to decline, or even go to zero, with single yields shrinking from the past dozens or even hundreds of dollars to just a few dollars, barely covering the Gas fees.

Further analysis shows that, on one hand, the market cap of newly launched projects has generally been low, and the valuation system has collapsed comprehensively. From the previous ARB and STARK airdrops, which had market caps of 10 to 20 billion dollars at launch, to now many projects starting with only a few hundred million or even tens of millions in FDV, the price lacks imagination, and airdrops are already worthless at launch. (It must be said that the previously inflated valuations of top projects, with data being manipulated and no stickiness, are also inseparable from the airdrop crowd that abandoned them after farming.)

On the other hand, even if the launch valuation is not high, it is difficult to expect a "catch-up." Many projects have "insider trading" entering early, and once they go live, they ruthlessly dump on the market or even run away, with various forms of collapse occurring repeatedly: halving in a single day, plummeting over 80%, rising sharply at launch and then continuously declining, and concentrated selling of airdrops. Many "old farmers" lament that "farming and selling immediately" should become a hard rule, as 90% of altcoins are destined to go to zero, and the risks of heavy bets far exceed potential returns.

Therefore, the opening profits of airdrops are now extremely limited; if one still chooses to stubbornly hold on and be a "diamond hand," they often not only miss the rebound but end up with even lower profits.

Despite the significant decline in yield farming profits in 2025, the track has not completely stagnated. Odaily Planet Daily has observed that the methods of yield farming are quietly diversifying, no longer just participating in testnet interactions or boosting mainnet transaction volumes to farm airdrops, but gradually forming multiple sub-directions.

Diversification in Yield Farming

From Traditional Yield Farming to "Skill Farming"

In 2025, the biggest innovation in the yield farming track is the "mouth farming economy." InfoFi (Information Finance) allows high-quality information creators to receive rewards directly through token incentives, while also alleviating the issues of information fragmentation and lack of trust in the crypto world.

Since Kaito launched the "Yap-to-Earn" mechanism, it has become easy to see a flood of posts analyzing "upcoming TGE projects" on social media. Subsequently, Cookie launched Cookie Snaps, highlighting "analyzing crypto projects and KOLs to obtain quality CT content rewards," while Galxe, through Starboard, uses a data-driven approach to help projects filter and incentivize key contributors. The introduction of these mechanisms has led KOLs to compete to publish project analysis posts, vying for token airdrops, making the concept of "mouth farming" popular in the community—earning project airdrops simply by posting and writing reviews.

Traditional yield farming may have reached a turning point. The past hard work of "running multiple accounts with scripts and grinding interactions" often ends up being cut off by the witch system—resulting in not only wasted effort but also no returns. Projects that were once run for years, filled with expectations, ended up with the disappointing result of "counter-farming," leaving people utterly disheartened.

The arrival of the "mouth farming" era, with platforms like Kaito and Cookie lowering participation barriers through content points and influence rewards, offers faster returns, lower costs, and greater potential. In this new landscape, a high-quality post on platform X, complete with images and opinions, can generate more value than a week of on-chain interactions.

Now, posting on platform X as "mouth farming" is essentially just a different form of creating a "premium account" for yield farming; adapting to the new yield farming model is key to obtaining more token airdrops.

Binance Alpha: The Main Source of Survival for Studios

Since its launch in May 2025, Binance Alpha has been hailed as the "wealth engine" of the yield farming world, especially peaking during the "golden month" of September. Starting from May, Binance Alpha and Binance Booster* (* For more related content, read: Don't just farm points for airdrops; Binance Alpha's Booster activities are also worth participating in* ) provided studios with "stable starting funds," earning between 500 to 2000 dollars a month, allowing studios to transition from "survival" to "expansion." Many yield farmers joked, "Binance is throwing money around, making it feel like money is blowing in from the wind."

In September, Binance Alpha entered the "token issuance expansion phase," with numerous project parties flocking to conduct TGE, with an airdrop frequency of 1 to 2 per day. Influenced by the "wealth effect" brought by Binance Alpha, on-chain data showed that the daily transaction volume of Binance's Web3 wallet once soared to 5 billion dollars, accounting for 95% of the mainstream wallet share; the number of users also surged from 100,000 in August to 400,000.

Despite the surge in users, profits have shown a "few monks, much meat" situation. According to the yield report released by crypto KOL Pump Pump Superman on September 17, among the 26 airdrop projects from September 2 to September 16, the highest yielding project was STBL, which had a launch sale value of 200 dollars, and if held until September 17, its value soared to 675 dollars. If all 26 projects were held until September 17, their total value would be 2529 dollars; even if all were sold at launch, a profit of 1544 dollars could still be obtained.

Binance Alpha Yield Report (Data as of September 17)

However, starting in October, the yield from Binance Alpha has shown a clear downward trend. The community has generally complained, "Some studios have already stopped farming, and some accounts with less than 1000 dollars have started to leave," as Binance Alpha has transitioned from the "big yield" era of September (where single airdrops often exceeded 100 dollars, with peak launch values of 300 dollars or even over 500 dollars) to the "small yield" or "break-even/minor loss" stage.

Two reasons account for this change. First is the "many monks," as the wealth effect in September attracted a large number of new users, especially yield farming studios, leading to increasing entry barriers and fierce competition during the claiming phase, with many only able to watch helplessly as their shares were snatched away amidst endless error messages and verifications; but more critically, "the meat is scarce," as although the number of participating users in Binance Alpha dropped from over 400,000 to 200,000 in November, the actual value of airdrop tokens has shrunk even more dramatically. Many projects have seen their prices drop or flash crash at launch, leading to a significant decline in single token profits, making the impact of reduced profits far more severe than the decrease in user numbers.

Indeed, "mouth farming" and Binance Alpha have brought new ways to make money in the yield farming track, but in the lukewarm crypto market of 2025, they are merely short-term stimuli, with profit windows being very limited. What truly allows yield farming to persist and stabilize profits are the two major backers of "new token investments" and "stablecoin financial management."

New Token Investments are Also an Important Component of Yield Farming Profits

Although this year's new tokens have generally been "high open, low walk," with it not uncommon for them to halve from their highs or even drop by 90%, for high-funding projects that are widely discussed on social media, new token investments still yield impressive returns. For these types of projects, a reasonable pricing at launch and full unlocking at TGE essentially means "if you get in, you earn."

The logic behind this is not complicated; these high-funding projects often have intensive promotional activities before and after launch, combined with a large number of KOLs collectively boosting sentiment, causing market enthusiasm to rapidly fill up in a short time. The higher the sentiment, the easier it is to form a liquidity rush at launch, significantly raising the opening price. For yield farming players, there is no need to bet on the track or gamble on long-term, as long as they seize the opening window, they can benefit from this "short-term premium."

The five projects launched on the BuidlPad platform this year have all been "guaranteed profits" for new token investments. Overall, they have generally provided instant returns of 2 to 5 times after TGE, with some, like FF and MMT, even reaching over 10 times at historical highs.

BuidlPad New Token Investment Returns Chart

In addition to BuidlPad, other popular new token investment platforms like Kaito and Legion, although some project prices are not fixed, as long as they meet two signals: sufficient community enthusiasm before launch and clear oversubscription during the subscription phase, they are generally worth participating in, with good returns on the day of TGE. Therefore, as December approaches, a new wave of new token investment enthusiasm has already begun, but not all projects are worth participating in; it is still necessary to focus on fundamental research, prioritizing projects with high funding, high oversubscription ratios, and high community discussion levels to have a chance at decent returns.

"Stablecoin Financial Management" is Not a Side Branch, But the Foundation for Long-Term Yield Farming

Yield farming is not just about "small bets for big gains"; earning stable returns is equally essential. The core of yield farming has never been about taking risks, but rather obtaining more certain chips with minimal capital erosion. Therefore, storing stablecoins for mining and claiming airdrops essentially also belongs to yield farming—simple operation, lower risk, and near-zero erosion.

In August this year, Binance launched a one-month USDC savings activity, with a single account limit of 100,000 dollars and an annualized return of up to 12%, which is a typical "high yield, low risk" yield farming opportunity. Thus, products that can stabilize around a 10% annualized return are worth allocating a portion of funds—they serve as a "healing device" to maintain liquidity during bear markets.

Binance Launches USDC Savings Activity

In 2025, the "ceiling" for stablecoin mining returns is undoubtedly Plasma. On August 20, Plasma and Binance jointly launched an on-chain earning event, allocating 1% of the total supply (100 million XPL) as deposit rewards and offering a 2% annualized return for USDT deposits. The event exploded across the internet: the first round of 250 million USDT was snatched up in less than an hour; the second round of 250 million USDT lasted only 5 minutes. Subsequently, Binance lowered the single account subscription limit to 10,000 USDT and opened the last 500 million USDT quota, which was also fully subscribed within hours, with over 30,000 Binance users participating in total.

Based on Binance's final allocation of 1 billion USDT, users who deposit 10,000 USDT can approximately receive 1,000 XPL. Calculating at the opening price of 0.6 dollars, the airdrop return would be about 600 dollars. More importantly, this profit only occupies about one month of time, translating to an annualized return of over 70%; coupled with USDT's inherent annualized interest rate of about 2%, the actual returns for yield farmers will be even higher. For stablecoin mining, this opportunity is undoubtedly a "rare find."

Plasma and Binance Jointly Launch On-Chain Earning Event

Additionally, "head mining" is also a golden opportunity for yield farmers, with short-term annualized returns often reaching 30% to 40%. Community hot topics like Plasma, Monad, or Linea have all provided token airdrops to reward network participants after their mainnet launches. Although these "head mining windows" are short-lived, the returns are substantial, making them worth seizing.

Plasma Mainnet Launch Day "Head Mining" Returns Chart

Finally, for individuals, in the USDT and USDC financial products within the Binance Web3 wallet, DeFi projects with annualized returns exceeding 10% will generally be participated in. Rather than dabbling in various chains and struggling to discern authenticity, it is better to directly choose DeFi products in the Binance wallet, which offers higher security and more peace of mind in operation.

Financial Products in Binance Web3 Wallet

"Stablecoin financial management" is not a side branch, but the foundation for long-term yield farming. Only by steadily growing funds and maintaining the basic plate can one avoid being drained during cold markets and be "well-armed" during hot markets.

The Industry Doesn't Die, Yield Farming Doesn't Die

In 2025, it's not that the yield farming track is dead, but that the altcoin market is too poor. Whether short-term speculation or long-term positioning, it has become nearly impossible to make money, and everyone is taking hits. Contract players have been liquidated six times in a month, drowning in debt; spot players have gone to zero twice in a year, questioning life; while yield farmers, although they cannot wake up every day to find their wallets increased by hundreds of dollars like in the past two years, their losses remain within a controllable range, making them one of the few groups that can still survive in this bear market.

Whether the market is cold or hot, yield farming remains a low-cost, sustainable path to making money.

In a cold market, yield farming allows us to slow down the pace. Although the number of airdrop projects is decreasing, precisely because the pace has slowed, we have more time to study each project thoroughly, understanding the mechanisms, gameplay, and long-term value. Instead of blindly opening high-leverage contracts on exchanges or hoarding a bunch of altcoins, it is better to focus on refining a "premium account." The bear market may seem boring, but it is the best phase to prepare investment research plans and get ready for a "premium account."

In a hot market, yield farming becomes a stable strategy of "locking in profits." In a bull market, altcoins generally rise, and the market valuation of new projects at TGE is higher, naturally lifting yield farming profits. Compared to coin hoarders who place heavy bets and rely on a single project to gamble for A7, the advantage of yield farming lies in being able to ruthlessly sell at launch and cash out as soon as you farm, not being completely tied to market sentiment. This not only allows for steady profit locking but also enables continuous rolling accumulation of returns, generating controllable cash flow in a volatile bull market.

Therefore, regarding the changes in the yield farming track this year, 2026 will also require more strategic operations. While refining the X account, "mouth farming" is worth continuing to participate in; Binance Alpha should comprehensively assess token value, airdrop thresholds, and trading erosion before deciding whether to participate; new token investments and stablecoin financial management should persist in seeking quality targets to maintain stable returns across different market conditions.

Currently, while yield farming may not make people rich overnight like in the past few years, steadily accumulating wealth is still achievable. The path of yield farming is ultimately a lonely one, relying on judgment, patience, and execution. Luck will always exist, but those who can survive in the yield farming track and continuously accumulate wealth are those who understand persistence, learning, and rhythm.

As long as the industry doesn't die, yield farming won't die—I'm confident that as long as we persist, there will still be opportunities to laugh until the end in 2026.