Crypto projects have spent approximately $640 million on token buybacks in 2026, a 17 percent increase from the same period last year and up sharply from $366,000 in 2024.
Hyperliquid and Pump.fun collectively account for nearly 90 percent of this capital allocation. The mechanism involves protocols using revenue to repurchase native tokens from the open market, often followed by burning them to reduce circulating supply and create upward price pressure.
Orest Gavryliak, chief legal officer at decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch, said buybacks are "much more straightforward" to communicate to users than governance rights, fee structures or specific protocol usage.
Yet the strategy carries an opportunity cost. Every dollar allocated to token buybacks is capital unavailable for hiring developers, expanding operations, reinforcing balance sheets or improving products.
The shift reflects crypto projects drawing from traditional finance playbooks to establish a direct link between operational success and token value—a challenge that has historically plagued decentralized projects.
Max Shannon, a senior research associate at Bitwise Europe, said buybacks and burns are an "effective way to accrue value to tokenholders" by establishing a "continuous bid in the open market for the token."
Hyperliquid commits 99 percent of its revenue to buying back and burning its native HYPE token. Pump.fun allocates 50 percent of revenue to buybacks and burns of PUMP, removing $446.65 million worth of the token from circulation to date.
Spark, a DeFi infrastructure protocol, takes a different approach. Co-founder and chief executive Sam MacPherson said Spark acquired over 143 million SPK tokens through open-market buybacks funded by protocol surplus. Rather than burning them, the tokens remain in the Spark treasury to reward long-term participants.
