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- Since the start of the year, crypto companies have spent about $640 million on buybacks of their own tokens.
- Almost 90% of all buybacks came from Hyperliquid and pump.fun.
- Hyperliquid uses 99% of trading fee revenue to buy back HYPE.
Since the start of 2026, crypto projects have spent about $640 million on buybacks of their own tokens. This is a record figure that far exceeds the volumes of such transactions in previous years. This is evidenced by data from blockchain research firm Allium Labs, cited by the Financial Times.
According to Allium Labs, since the start of 2026, crypto projects have spent about $638 million on buybacks of their own tokens. Over the same period in 2025, the figure was $545 million, while for all of 2024 it was only about $366,000.
The biggest players in this trend were the derivatives crypto exchange Hyperliquid and the memecoin launch platform pump.fun. Together, they account for almost 90% of all buybacks.
Buying back a project’s own tokens means the project uses part of its funds to purchase assets on the open market. This reduces the available supply and can create additional demand. The strategy resembles share buybacks by public companies. However, crypto tokens typically do not grant holders the same economic or corporate rights as shares, the report notes.
Allium Labs head of research Elton Shehdula noted that buybacks also have a “visual incentive” for crypto projects. According to him, this is how companies demonstrate confidence in their token while simultaneously reducing its supply on the market.
Hyperliquid Spends Almost All Fee Revenue on HYPE
The biggest example of this strategy is Hyperliquid. The platform allocates 99% of trading fee revenue to buy back its HYPE token. Since the token launched in December 2024, Hyperliquid has bought back and burned roughly $1.3 billion worth of HYPE. Over the past year, the token’s price has risen by about 70%.
Bitwise Asset Management chief investment officer Matt Hougan called the aggressive buybacks one of the main reasons behind HYPE’s growth. In his view, this policy gave investors confidence that rising onchain activity is being converted into token value.
Other Projects Are Also Launching Buyback Programs
Other crypto projects have also joined the strategy.
FT noted that the DeFi protocol Sky Protocol has bought back its own tokens for around $26 million. According to co-founder Rune Christensen, the protocol generated more than $400 million in revenue over the past year. SKY holders have voting rights over how the protocol operates. Christensen said the token buyback is intended to ensure holders remain заинтересовані in the project’s long-term development
In August, the crypto staking protocol Lido also announced plans to regularly buy back its own token. The company tied the launch of the program to reaching certain financial metrics, including annual revenue of $40 million. At the same time, the Lido token has lost about 70% of its value over the past year and is trading near all-time lows.
However, data from some projects shows that buybacks of a project’s own assets do not necessarily lead to an increase in their price.
For example, the decentralized exchange Jupiter spent nearly $14 million on token buybacks this year. At the same time, their price has fallen by about 55% over the past year. Chainlink has also carried out buybacks, but the dollar value of LINK has been cut roughly in half over the past year.
The Helium platform stopped its buyback program altogether in February. Project co-founder Amir Halim said the market does not seem to react to such transactions, so the company decided not to spend money on them.
Shehdula also warned investors against automatically viewing buybacks as a sign of a high-quality project. According to him, the mere fact of a buyback does not mean the token has strong prospects.
As a reminder, earlier Curve founder Mykhailo Yehorov called pump.fun a “casino full of scams” and criticized Phantom.
Source: incrypted.com