Two projects ate crypto's $638M buyback buffet, leaving crumbs for everyone else

Cryptocurrency projects have spent a record $638 million repurchasing their own tokens year-to-date through Aug. 25, more than double the $366,000 recorded during the same period in 2024, according to Allium Labs data cited by the Financial Times. The figure, up from $545 million in the equivalent stretch of 2025, reflects a sharp acceleration in a still-nascent practice that mirrors share buybacks by publicly listed companies.

Nearly 90% of that record spend was concentrated in two platforms. Decentralized exchange Hyperliquid accounted for roughly $370 million, while memecoin launchpad Pump.fun directed nearly $200 million toward repurchases. Both protocols disclose aggressive buyback policies: Hyperliquid has allocated about 99% of its revenue to HYPE buybacks, reporting $169 million in second-quarter revenue on Aug. 6 and directing $141 million of it to repurchases. Pump.fun allocates roughly 50% of its net protocol revenue to buybacks and currently posts $420 million in annualized revenue based on its trailing 90-day average.

The buybacks have coincided with outperformance for both tokens. HYPE is up 145% and PUMP is up 109% year-to-date, even as Bitcoin ($BTC) has fallen 10% and total crypto market capitalization has declined 11.9% over the same period, according to TradingView data. On Thursday, the Ethena Foundation opened a vote on a fee-switch proposal under which 95% of the net revenue paid to it from Ethena's core business lines would be used to repurchase ENA tokens; the ENA token rose 10.7% on the day the proposal was published.

Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan said earlier in August that crypto valuations could double in the next two years as protocols increasingly use revenue to fund token buybacks and burns, returning more value to investors.