Crypto protocols have spent $640 million on token buybacks so far in 2026, a practice accelerating across DeFi. The figure represents a 17 percent increase from the same period in 2025 and a major jump from the $366,000 spent in 2024.
The strategy involves protocols using generated revenue to repurchase native tokens from the open market, then either hold them in treasury or remove them permanently through burning—a mechanism designed to reduce supply and create upward price pressure.
Hyperliquid and Pump.fun account for nearly 90 percent of current buyback spend. The derivatives Layer 1 Hyperliquid dedicates 99 percent of its revenue to buying back and burning HYPE tokens. Pump.fun allocates 50 percent of revenue toward repurchasing and burning PUMP, with $446.65 million worth of PUMP already removed from circulation.
This approach mirrors traditional finance corporate buybacks, aiming to establish a direct link between protocol economics and token value—a connection many projects have historically failed to articulate for token holders.
Orest Gavryliak, chief legal officer at DEX aggregator 1inch, said that telling users a project has "bought and burned tokens" is "much more straightforward" than explaining governance rights, fee structures or protocol usage.
Max Shannon, senior research associate at Bitwise Europe, said buybacks and burns establish a continuous bid in the open market for a token, directly tethering token success to the underlying protocol's activity. This represents a departure from the narrative-driven speculation that dominated token markets in prior years.
The strategy carries a trade-off: every dollar allocated to token buybacks is a dollar not spent on developer hiring, business expansion, balance sheet strengthening or product development.
DeFi infrastructure protocol Spark uses a modified buyback model. Co-founder and chief executive Sam MacPherson confirmed Spark acquired over 143 million SPK through open-market buybacks funded by protocol surplus. Unlike Hyperliquid and Pump.fun, these SPK tokens remain in the Spark treasury rather than burned, intended to reward long-term participants.
