XRP, XLM, ADA – Zombie Crypto to Avoid or Bear Market Fortresses? 

Acting editor-in-chief

Gary McFarlane

Acting editor-in-chief

Gary McFarlane

Part of the Team Since

Mar 2020

About Author

Gary McFarlane is the editor-in-chief at Cryptonews.com

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Last updated: 

March 3, 2026

Do you know how many Zombie protocols are lurking in your portfolio? Chances are, it will be quite a few, but you probably can’t face taking the time to or going through the pain of surveying the desolate scene.

Fortunately for you, we looked at the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation to see how many Zombies we could find. To do that, we started by using the treasury-to-fee ratio.

Before we continue, a word of warning. Using the term “Zombie” does not necessarily mean the project is failing. In fact, protocols identified as Zombies can be among the safest in the bear market conditions we are currently experiencing.

Zombies may have the capital to continue development indefinitely. For instance XRP 0.03% might be a Zombie by some measures but has ‘hard money on hand to keep going for a long time.

But having said that, looking at it from the standpoint of investor efficiency, they are the custodians of unproductive capital.

Or put that another way, your $1 of market cap buys very little current network utility compared to a ‘lean giant’ like ETH +0.40% or Hyperliquid.

With those provisos in mind, let’s walk through our methodology for finding the Zombie crypto protocols.

How to Find the Zombies – Measuring Total Economic Activity (TEA)

Put simply, for protocols with transparent on-chain treasuries (DAO or Foundation), we took the dollar value of all the project’s liquid assets. We compared it to the fees generated by the protocol or blockchain to get a ratio.

Then we reduced some of the noise by excluding native tokens from the treasury. Instead, we decided to only include stablecoins, BTC +1.57%, and ETH in the calculation.

We now have a rough measure of capital efficiency, with the lowest treasury-to-fees ratio indicating the highest efficiency. A high reading means the treasury is subsidizing on-chain activity.

We then brought in the Total Economic Activity (TEA) metric. TEA pulls together the sum of the value moving through the network across three dimensions: Settlement Volume (GDP), Application-level Fees (service), and Chain Fees & MEV (infrastructure). This approach unlocks insight into actual real-world adoption and sidesteps the distortions created by price speculation.

So we aggregate the dimensions mentioned and then annualize like so:

TEA = (Settlement Volume + App Fees + Chain Fees & MEV) x 365

Now we can apply a meaningful non-native efficiency score by calculating the TEA generated per dollar ($1.0) of value held in treasury.

Our Revenue Multiple – The Price-to-Fees Ratio

Next, we can measure how the market is valuing each dollar of value generated by the blockchain. To achieve this end, we can deploy the price-to-fees ratio, or ‘revenue multiple’. A low ratio suggests undervaluation. A high ratio can indicate strong future growth expectations.

We can then filter the results by cross-referencing non-native efficiency and the price-to-fee ratio. Those protocols with high non-native efficiency and a low price-to-fee ratio should be the best-value protocols.

We can look to the future, say 12 months out, by normalizing all the protocols/coins in our table against the industry average (a price-to-fees ratio of 25x) revenue multiple.

A sensitivity score and runway analysis can also help us with some ‘what-if’ situations.

How would the efficiency scores change if the price of their native tokens dropped by 50%? This is our sensitivity score.

And what is the project’s sustainability at its current spend rate and treasury holding? In other words, how long before it runs out of money? This is our runway analysis.

If the token’s price falls by 50%, the non-native efficiency score is unaffected. Still, the native diluted efficiency score will see its capital value cut in half (all other things equal), and the efficiency score will rise as a result.

In this context, a strongly positive efficiency score that includes native tokens in its reckoning is not a very useful measure, because a 50% price drop could threaten the survival of a project with high native token capital dependency.

With that in mind, it is essential to combine its use with the runway analysis. Below, we break down the results of our number crunching and what it tells us about the identified protocols.

Identifying Zombie Protocols In Crypto, Treasury (inc. native tokens) = $1 billion+

Cryptonews Zombie Protocol Index Analysis, Treasury (inc. native tokens) $100m+

Critical Analysis of the “Zombie” Tier

• The Escrow Outliers (XRP & XLM): These protocols are the “Titans of Inertia.” Because the companies behind them (Ripple and SDF) hold massive amounts of the total supply in escrow or foundation wallets, their “Treasury” values reach billions. While they move hundreds of billions in value, their efficiency score is low because so much capital remains “locked” and unproductive.
• The VC-Heavy Generation (Aptos, Sui, Starknet): These projects represent the “Post-2022” VC era. They launched with significant funding and protocol-owned liquidity. Their scores are below 100 because their treasuries are valued at peak institutional interest, while their ecosystems are still in the “Developer Attraction” phase rather than the “User Transaction” phase.
• The “Pure Infrastructure” Trap (Celestia): Celestia is a unique case. It provides immense value to other chains (modular data availability), but its fees are so low that it generates very little revenue relative to the value of its protocol treasury. It is “efficient” for users but “Zombie-like” in terms of capital productivity.
• The Sovereign Wealth Fund (Mantle): Mantle possesses one of the most powerful non-native treasuries in the world (ETH and Stablecoins). However, until it generates trillions in TEA (matching its L2 peers like Arbitrum), it remains a “Zombie” by our metric—more of a fund than a thriving economy.
• The “Academic” Pace (Cardano): Cardano has one of the most dedicated communities, but its treasury (controlled by IOG/Foundation) is vast compared to the relatively low volume of on-chain decentralized applications and stablecoin settlement today.
• Infrastructure vs. Activity (HBAR/APT): Both Hedera and Aptos were built as “enterprise-grade” solutions. They possess the capital to survive for decades, but their “Zombie” status comes from the fact that most of their network capacity is currently “idle.” For every $1 they have in the bank, they facilitate only ~$12–$30 in annual activity.

Can a Zombie Wake Up?

To exit “Zombie” status, a protocol must do one of two things:

1. Increase Velocity: Drive more DEX, RWA, or P2P volume (TEA) to justify the capital base.
2. Burn Treasury: Decrease the size of the idle reserves to lean out the economy.

Sensitivity Analysis: Impact of -50% Native Token Price on Total Runway

Ranked by Runway Reduction (Vulnerability)

• Most Sensitive (Near, Optimism, Cardano): These protocols have the highest native tokens dependency. While a 50% price drop makes them look nearly twice as “efficient” on paper (as the denominator shrinks), it significantly reduces their actual purchasing power for future development and ecosystem grants.
• The “Hedge” Leaders (Tezos, Tron, Ethereum): Because these protocols have diversified their treasuries into stablecoins or other significant assets (like BTC/ETH), their efficiency scores are much more stable. A market-wide crash has a significantly smaller impact on their capital structure.
• The Immutable Efficiency (Sky, Ethena): Since these protocols function primarily as reserve managers using non-native collateral (stablecoins and staked ETH), their efficiency scores remain unchanged during a native token price drop. This makes them the most “financially resilient” models on the list.
• The Scaling Effect: For Solana and Hyperliquid, even a 50% drop in native token value leaves them with massive efficiency scores (over 8,000). This indicates that their network utility (TEA) is so vast that even a significantly smaller treasury would still be highly “productive.”

Protocol Survival Runway Analysis (as of February 2026)

Based on Non-Native Reserves vs. Net Annual Burn (Spending minus Fees)

Key Findings

• The Sustainable Giants: Nearly half of the protocols in this list (including Ethereum, Solana, and Hyperliquid) have reached “escape velocity.” Their fee revenue is significantly higher than their likely operating costs, allowing them to grow their treasuries rather than deplete them.
• The “War Chest” Survivors: Mantle and Tezos possess exceptional longevity despite lower fee revenue. Because they hold massive quantities of non-native assets (BTC, ETH, Stables), they can survive for a decade or more even if their network activity remains flat.
• The High-Burn Risk: Projects like Cardano, ICP, and Near show shorter runways (under 1 year) when looking strictly at their Non-Native (hard) reserves. While they often hold billions in their native tokens, their survival depends heavily on the market price of those tokens to fund their large development teams and foundations.
• L2 Scalability vs. Survival: Arbitrum and Optimism have runways of roughly 2 to 3 years. This reflects the 2025-2026 trend, in which L2 fees have been compressed to near zero, forcing these foundations to rely on their treasuries while they wait for massive scale to turn them profitable.

The 2026 Protocol Z-Score: Bankruptcy Risk Ranking

Universe: “Zombie” Protocols (Treasury > $100M, Efficiency

Rank	Cryptocurrency	Non-Native Treasury	Net Annual Burn	Z-Score (Hard Runway)	Risk Assessment
1	Cardano (ADA)	$30 M	$120.5 M	0.25	🔴 CRITICAL
2	Internet Computer (ICP)	$45 M	$158.3 M	0.28	🔴 CRITICAL
3	EOS / Vaulta (A)	$15 M	$50.0 M	0.3	🔴 HIGH
4	Near (NEAR)	$55 M	$92.0 M	0.6	🔴 HIGH
5	Hedera (HBAR)	$110 M	$85.0 M	1.29	🟠 MODERATE
6	Starknet (STRK)	$210 M	$95.0 M	2.21	🟢 SECURE
7	Sui (SUI)	$380 M	$42.0 M	9.05	🟢 SECURE
8	Mantle (MNT)	$840 M	$40.0 M	21	🟢 FORTRESS
9	Ripple (XRP)	~$1.2 B	Unknown	>10.0	🟢 FORTRESS

“Z-Score” Bankruptcy Risk Ranking

The Z-Score measures the likelihood that a protocol will run out of its “Hard Money” (Non-Native) treasury within 24 months if fee revenue does not increase to match spending. A lower score (0–1) indicates high bankruptcy risk, while a score of 10+ indicates a “Fortress” protocol.

Understanding the Indicator Logic

• 🔴 CRITICAL / HIGH (Z-Score These protocols have less than 12 months of hard currency (Stablecoins/BTC) to cover their expenses. They are in a state of “Native Token Dependency.” If the market faces a significant downturn, they will be forced to sell their own tokens into a falling market (the “Death Spiral” risk) or drastically shut down development.
• 🟠 MODERATE (Z-Score 1.0 – 2.0): These projects have a buffer of 1 to 2 years. While not in immediate danger, they lack the multi-year sustainability required to weather a prolonged “Crypto Winter” without making significant structural changes to their spending.
• 🟢 SECURE / FORTRESS (Z-Score > 2.0): These protocols have built a “Hard Money” moat. Even if their native tokens (SUI, STRK, MNT, XRP) lost 90% of their value tomorrow, these foundations hold enough external assets to keep the lights on for years. They are the “Buyers” in the next market cycle, while the Red-tier protocols will likely be the “Sellers.”