Recently there was a pretty interesting piece of news.

This year, many Crypto projects have cumulatively spent $640 million to buy back their own tokens. Hyperliquid and pump.fun are both prominent examples.

When many people see a buyback, their first reaction is:

“Isn’t this bullish?”

But I think what’s truly worth looking at isn’t whether there’s a buyback—it’s what happens after the buyback.

Are real users continuing to grow?

Is protocol revenue still increasing?

Has on-chain activity become more active?

Or is it just propping up the price by reducing circulating supply?

In traditional stock markets, whether share buybacks can improve value long-term ultimately still depends on the company’s profitability.

Crypto is the same.

If a project has only buybacks and no real use cases, even the biggest “bullish” signals are unlikely to keep the market supported for long.

So when I evaluate projects, I first look at:

- Whether on-chain transactions continue to grow;
- Whether the flow of funds is healthy;
- Whether protocol revenue is increasing;
- Whether there’s real cash flow behind the buybacks.

Lately, I’ve been watching these data points together on Ave.ai.

I’m increasingly convinced that:

Price can be driven by sentiment.

But in the long run, real data ultimately determines value.

What do you think—will Token Buybacks become a long-term trend in Crypto, or just a defensive strategy during the bear market?