Crypto’s $638M Buyback Boom: Why Hyperliquid and Pump.fun Are Changing Tokenomics

• Crypto projects ramp up token repurchases in 2026.
• HYPE and PUMP drive nearly 90% of buybacks.
• Protocol fees are fueling the new buyback trend.

Crypto projects are buying back their own tokens at a pace the industry has rarely seen before.

So far in 2026, crypto protocols have spent roughly $638 million repurchasing their native tokens, according to data from Allium Labs cited by the Financial Times. That is already above the approximately $545 million spent during the same period in 2025 and dramatically higher than the $366,000 recorded in 2024.

But there is an interesting twist.

Nearly 90% of this year’s buybacks have come from just two projects: Hyperliquid and Pump.fun.

The Rise of Revenue-Backed Buybacks

Token buybacks are not entirely new in crypto. What is changing is the source of the money being used for them.

Rather than simply creating incentives or distributing more tokens to attract users, some protocols are taking the fees generated by their platforms and putting that revenue back into their tokens.

The concept is relatively straightforward.

A protocol generates revenue from users. Instead of distributing all of that revenue elsewhere, it uses a portion to purchase its own token from the market. In some cases, those tokens are subsequently burned, permanently removing them from circulation.

The theory is that if demand remains steady while the available supply decreases, the token could become scarcer.

Hyperliquid Leads the Charge

Hyperliquid has become the biggest example of this model.

The decentralized trading platform directs roughly 99% of eligible trading fees toward automated HYPE buybacks and burns.

That creates a direct relationship between activity on the platform and demand for its token.

In simple terms, more trading activity can generate more fees, which can result in more money being used to purchase HYPE.

This is significantly different from a model where a project continually releases new tokens as rewards.

Pump.fun Joins the Race

Pump.fun is taking a similar but somewhat different approach.

The memecoin-launching platform allocates roughly half of certain revenues toward PUMP token repurchases.

The strategy gives the token an economic connection to activity taking place on the platform. If revenue grows, the amount available for repurchases can potentially grow as well.

This helps explain why two relatively young crypto projects are responsible for such a large share of the industry’s 2026 buybacks.

Why This Matters for Crypto Investors

For years, one of the biggest criticisms of crypto tokenomics has been inflation.

Projects can distribute tokens to users, developers, investors and other participants, but constantly increasing supply can create selling pressure if demand fails to keep pace.

Buybacks offer the opposite mechanism.

Instead of continuously adding tokens to circulation, a protocol can use its revenue to purchase tokens and, where applicable, remove them from supply.

That does not automatically make a token valuable. A project still needs genuine users, sustainable revenue and long-term demand. Buybacks funded by weak or temporary revenues may not provide the same economic support.

But the model represents an important change in philosophy.

A New Tokenomics Experiment

The $638 million figure suggests that crypto may be moving toward a model where protocol revenue matters more to token economics.

The industry’s next test will be whether Hyperliquid and Pump.fun can sustain their buybacks and whether other successful protocols follow their lead.

If they do, tokenomics could increasingly resemble traditional corporate finance: businesses generate revenue, use part of it to repurchase their own assets and attempt to return value to existing holders.

For crypto, that could be a significant shift.

The question is no longer simply whether a protocol can create a token.

It is whether the protocol can generate enough real economic activity to buy that token back.