Crypto Projects Spend $640 Million Buying Back Their Own Tokens

Crypto projects are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into buying back their own tokens, but is this really creating value?

As of 2026, the total buyback scale has reached approximately $640 million, up about 17% year-over-year. Hyperliquid and Pump.fun alone account for nearly 90% of that figure.

Buybacks create demand for tokens while reducing supply, which can make each remaining token more valuable. Orest Gavryliak, Chief Legal Officer at DEX aggregator 1inch, said: 'When projects implement revenue-backed buybacks and burns, they usually have one or two goals in mind: either reducing the circulating token supply, or demonstrating to the market the logic of investing in the protocol's revenue.'

However, not all experts agree that buybacks are a good use of funds. Max Shannon, Senior Research Associate at Bitwise Europe, noted that 'buybacks and burns remain an effective means of returning value to token holders: they create sustained buy pressure for the token in the open market, directly tying the token's success to platform adoption.'

But he also warned that investors should carefully distinguish between 'buyback programs that boost token prices' and 'successful business models.' A sustainable protocol generating real surplus might conclude that spending some money on buybacks is the optimal choice, but equally, a struggling project might simply be trying to use buybacks to prop up its price.