Token Buybacks Fuel Crypto Frenzy: Are They Worth It?

Token buybacks are becoming increasingly popular in the crypto space, with projects spending around $640 million on this practice so far in 2026, a 17% increase from the same period last year. Hyperliquid and Pump.fun account for almost 90% of the current spend.

Buybacks can create demand for a token while reducing supply, making each token more valuable. This dynamic can cause upward pressure on the token price. Orest Gavryliak, chief legal officer at decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch, notes that buybacks and burns allow projects to demonstrate the rationale for investing in protocol revenues.

However, there's a flipside: every dollar spent buying tokens is a dollar that could have been used elsewhere. MacPherson says, 'The question should be: what is the highest-value use of the next dollar of surplus?' If a protocol can reinvest capital at attractive returns, that can be more valuable than simply distributing revenue as it arrives.