Crypto projects spent $640 million on token buybacks so far in 2026, a 17 percent increase from the same period the year prior. Hyperliquid and Pump.fun collectively account for almost 90 percent of current buyback expenditure.
Token buybacks create demand for an asset, while subsequent burns reduce its circulating supply. This dual mechanism exerts upward pressure on the token's price by making each remaining token more valuable.
The practice also offers token holders a direct connection to the underlying protocol's economic performance. Orest Gavryliak, chief legal officer at decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch, said that explaining a project has "bought and burned tokens" is "much more straightforward" than detailing governance rights or fee structures.
Max Shannon, a senior research associate at Bitwise Europe, said buybacks and burns remain an effective method to accrue value for tokenholders by creating a continuous bid in the open market, directly linking token success to protocol activity.
Hyperliquid, a Layer 1 for perpetual futures, has committed 99 percent of its revenue to buy back and burn its native HYPE token. Pump.fun allocates 50 percent of its revenue towards buying and burning its PUMP token, having already removed $446.65 million worth of PUMP from circulation through these operations.
The strategy carries a trade-off. Every dollar a protocol spends on buybacks is a dollar unavailable for hiring developers, expanding operations, strengthening the protocol's balance sheet, or funding product development.
DeFi infrastructure protocol Spark employs a different model. The protocol acquired over 143 million SPK tokens through open-market buybacks funded by its protocol surplus, according to co-founder and chief executive Sam MacPherson. Unlike Hyperliquid and Pump.fun, Spark's acquired SPK tokens were not burned. Instead, these tokens remain in the Spark treasury to reward long-term participants and support the protocol's ecosystem.
