CoW Protocol

CoW Protocol generated $50.5M in gross revenue from Feb 2023 to Mar 2026 (1148 days), with $37.2M retained as net revenue. Its primary token utilities include Fee Discounts, Service Payments, Standard 1:1, and Delegated.

This averages $$43.9K in daily gross revenue across the tracked period.

COW accrues value through 1 mechanism: Buyback & Hold.

• Buyback & Hold: CoW DAO uses protocol fee revenue to buy COW tokens via TWAP orders on Uniswap, holding them in a dedicated 'CoW Buyback Recipient' safe rather than burning them. Since April 2024, this achieved net negative emissions of ~3.36M COW, targeting weekly emissions +20%.

Yes, CoW Protocol burns COW tokens via Buyback & Hold.

COW serves 4 primary functions within the CoW Protocol ecosystem: Fee Discounts, Service Payments, Standard 1:1, and Delegated. The protocol generates fees from user activity. Value flows back to token holders through Buyback & Hold.

Token utilities:

• Fee Discounts: COW token holders receive trading fee discounts on CoW Swap, with lower fee quotes provided to orders from users holding COW tokens. Approximately 21% of CoW Swap trades benefit from these tiered fee discounts.
• Service Payments: COW tokens are the primary unit of account for solver rewards. Solvers competing to find optimal settlement solutions for user orders are compensated weekly in COW tokens through a Vickrey-Clarke-Groves-like mechanism.
• Standard 1:1: COW and vCOW tokens provide 1:1 voting power on Snapshot governance proposals. Votes are weighted by aggregate balance across eight strategies covering both token types on Ethereum and Gnosis Chain, with a 35M vote quorum requirement.
• Delegated: Token holders can delegate their vCOW and COW voting power to other addresses across different chains, enabling representative governance without transferring tokens.

Value accrual mechanisms:

• Buyback & Hold: CoW DAO uses protocol fee revenue to buy COW tokens via TWAP orders on Uniswap, holding them in a dedicated 'CoW Buyback Recipient' safe rather than burning them. Since April 2024, this achieved net negative emissions of ~3.36M COW, targeting weekly emissions +20%.

In 2026, CoW Protocol generated $8.6M in gross revenue. Of that, $6.9M was retained as protocol revenue (treasury), $1.7M went to supply-side participants (e.g. liquidity providers).

Year-by-year revenue breakdown:

• 2026: $8.6M gross revenue — $6.9M to protocol, $1.7M to supply-side
• 2025: $29.6M gross revenue — $20.7M to protocol, $8.9M to supply-side
• 2024: $12.3M gross revenue — $9.7M to protocol, $2.6M to supply-side

CoW Protocol's gross revenue has decreased by 19.4% over the past 90 days compared to the prior 90-day period, from $10.8M to $8.7M.

• Recent 90d daily average: $99.9K/day
• Prior 90d daily average: $119.7K/day