CRYPTO MARKETS — Crypto projects have spent a record $640 million buying back their own tokens this year, providing badly needed evidence that somebody, somewhere, remains interested in purchasing them.
The strategy, increasingly popular among projects with actual revenue, involves using that revenue to repurchase and sometimes burn their own tokens, reducing supply and supporting prices through the innovative market mechanism known elsewhere as “the company buying its own stuff.”
Analysts praised the development as a major step toward maturity.
“Crypto spent years arguing that value should emerge organically from decentralized markets,” said Marcus Vale, digital-assets strategist at Fenwick Capital. “Fortunately, several projects now have enough centralized revenue to intervene when decentralization produces the wrong price.”
Hyperliquid and Pump.fun have accounted for the overwhelming majority of this year’s buybacks, demonstrating that token holders no longer need to rely exclusively on outside investors when the issuer can simply become the outside investor.
Bitcoin, notably, has not participated.
This is largely because Bitcoin continues to suffer from a severe governance deficiency: there is no Bitcoin company, CEO, board, treasury committee or investor-relations department capable of announcing that Bitcoin believes Bitcoin is undervalued and has authorized a $2 billion Bitcoin repurchase program.
When demand for bitcoin falls, the network instead continues using its primitive stabilization mechanism of doing absolutely nothing.
Industry executives said token buybacks prove crypto is finally becoming more sophisticated.
After years spent reinventing money, it has now reached the exciting stage of reinventing share repurchases.
Inspired by:
Financial Times - "Crypto groups spend record $640mn buying back their own tokens" (August 31, 2026)
