Are DeFi Tokens Losing Relevance Without Fresh Utility?

[Manon]

Even with DeFi 2.5 innovations, most DeFi tokens are just governance placeholders with price volatility and no intrinsic use. Outside of fee-sharing (like GMX, GNS), is anyone truly innovating with DeFi token mechanics anymore?

Which protocols are still pushing functional, user-aligned token design?

 

[GIFZE]

Good points raised here. While a lot of tokens still lean heavily on governance and speculative value, there are a few teams experimenting beyond fee-sharing models. Projects like EtherFi with liquid staking points, Pendle’s yield tokenization, and Redacted’s hidden hand mechanism show there’s still room for functional, utility-driven token design. It’s slower progress than early DeFi cycles, but some protocols are exploring models that better align incentives with actual platform usage.

It’s encouraging to see projects like EtherFi and Pendle pushing token utility beyond speculation toward real, user-aligned value models.