Crypto Project Token Buybacks Hit Record $640 Million This Year
nashnova research
Crypto projects have spent $638 million buying back their own tokens so far this year, a record high — but whether buybacks actually support prices varies wildly from project to project.
$638 million in buybacks — what does the number tell us?
Blockchain data firm Allium Labs puts year-to-date crypto token buybacks at roughly $638 million, up from $545 million in the same period last year.
The contrast with 2024 is stark: full-year buybacks totaled just $366,000 — this year's figure is more than 1,700 times that.
This means → token buybacks went from a fringe tactic to an industry-wide movement in the space of a single year.
What is the logic behind buybacks?
Token buybacks — a project spending its revenue to repurchase and often burn its own tokens, shrinking the circulating supply — borrow directly from the stock-market share-buyback playbook.
Allium Labs head of research Elton Shehdula says buybacks carry an "image incentive": they signal confidence and "reduce supply, another lever to support token prices."
In plain terms = the project puts real money behind its own token, cutting sell pressure while saying "we think we're undervalued."
Who is leading, and who actually benefited?
Hyperliquid, a perpetual-futures exchange, is the biggest buyer — funneling 99% of trading-fee revenue into buying back and burning its HYPE token, totaling $1.3 billion since its December 2024 launch.
HYPE rose roughly 70% over the past year, bucking the broader sell-off. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan calls the aggressive buyback the "primary" driver.
This means → in Hyperliquid's case at least, sustained buyback-and-burn convinced investors that "on-chain activity translates into token value."
Memecoin launchpad pump.fun and Hyperliquid together account for nearly 90% of this year's total buybacks — concentration is extreme.
When do buybacks fail?
Decentralized exchange Jupiter bought back nearly $14 million this year, yet its token still fell 55% over the past year.
Cross-chain platform Chainlink ran buybacks too; LINK's dollar value still halved over the same period.
Helium went further — it scrapped its buyback program in February. Co-founder Amir Haleem said: "The market doesn't seem to care about projects buying tokens, so we're not going to keep wasting money."
In plain terms = buybacks are no cure-all; without real fundamentals behind the project, buying your own token is just burning cash.
Why did buybacks explode this year?
Buybacks were rare before, largely because of regulatory fear: under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, projects worried that repurchasing tokens could get them classified as securities.
After the Trump administration took office, U.S. regulators shifted markedly in their stance toward crypto, lowering the perceived legal risk of buyback programs.
This reflects a dual trigger — market logic (broad price declines pushing projects to shore up confidence) plus a policy window (regulatory easing reducing legal exposure).
Can buybacks make "protocol revenue = token price" real?
Allium Labs' Shehdula is "skeptical" that buybacks can meaningfully lift prices on their own.
Keyrock researcher Amir Hajian argues the era of tokens surging on hype alone is over — "token holders are looking at projects through a fundamentals lens … this has become a market where not all assets rise together."
This means → whether buybacks can truly channel protocol revenue into token value remains the central unresolved question in crypto right now — the answer lies not in the buyback itself, but in whether the project has real revenue and real users.
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