Holder Revenue
The portion of a protocol's income that actually reaches token holders, through direct payments, buybacks, or burns.
Income can reach holders in three ways: a distribution paid to those who stake the governance token, a buyback that removes units from supply, or accrual into a treasury that holders collectively govern, which is the weakest form since nothing is received. Analysts sometimes divide holder revenue by market capitalization to produce a yield-style ratio, and the comparison to a dividend yield fails on several points at once. There is no legal entitlement, no declared payment with a record date, governance can end the policy, and the payment may be made in the protocol's own token, which cannot dilute a recipient in the equity case but can here. Periods are short and volatile, so annualizing a single strong quarter is a common error.
In practice
A protocol that routes part of its fee income into buying and burning its own token delivers holder revenue as a reduction in supply rather than as a payment.
The common misunderstanding
Holder revenue is not a dividend: no legal obligation stands behind it, no shareholder claim supports it, and governance can switch it off.
The figure this maps to
The part of fees routed to token holders through burns, buybacks, or direct distributions.
Limits: A burn is not a payment: no holder receives anything, and the benefit exists only through reduced supply, which changes value only if demand is unchanged. Some adapters classify all treasury inflows as holder revenue even where the treasury is controlled by a multisig and has never distributed…