Related tokens: $HYPE $UNI $PUMP $SKY $ASTER $CAKE
Over the past two years, I’ve noticed an increasingly clear divide: among the altcoins all waving the banners of “DeFi,” “protocol,” and “ecosystem,” some have already climbed three- or fourfold from the bottom, while others are still stuck in the mud—or sinking even lower.
At first, I was puzzled too—when it came to narrative, technology, and community buzz, the projects languishing at the bottom weren’t any worse than the ones going up. Then I dug into the data and compared them, and found there was just one dividing line: whether the protocol used its own revenue to buy back and burn its tokens on the open market.
Put simply, it comes down to this: are you willing to put your profits toward “supporting the token price”? If you are, the market votes with its feet and pushes the price up. If you aren’t, no one will believe you, no matter how compelling your story sounds.
Why has “automatic buyback and burn” become the strongest model?
First, some background. Overall, altcoins performed disappointingly in the previous cycle (2022–2025). Many projects couldn’t even outperform Bitcoin during the bull market, retail investors got burned over and over, and investors got smarter too. Talk to me about vision, TVL, or technical innovation—it all means less than putting actual revenue toward buybacks.
Buybacks come in different grades, too. The weakest kind relies on verbal promises from the team and manual execution: they might have money for a buyback today, then stop tomorrow when funds run dry. There’s too much room for inconsistency. The strongest kind is hard-coded into a smart contract, executed automatically on-chain, and buys back and burns tokens as soon as revenue comes in. No one can change it, and everything can be verified on-chain. That’s what truly embodies the spirit of blockchain.
The projects leading the way in this new cycle are precisely the ones in the latter group. Below, I’ll run through six typical buyback-focused projects on the market today, so you can see who’s actually doing the work and who’s just jumping on the bandwagon.
Six projects put to the test: who’s really burning tokens, and who’s just putting on a show?
📁 Tier 1: Automatic on-chain buybacks + burns (the real deal)
HYPE (Hyper Protocol)
90% of protocol fees are automatically used for buybacks and burns; annual revenue exceeds $1 billion, with 50,000 tokens burned daily and 1.3 billion burned to date
$23 at the start of the year → a high of $97, about 4x
Pump (Pump.fun)
50% of protocol revenue goes to on-chain buybacks and burns; in April, $370 million worth of tokens were burned in a single transaction, bringing the total burned to 17% of the supply
About 5x since June
UNI (Uniswap)
The fee switch was turned on last year, with programmatic buybacks and burns; 11.3% of the supply has been burned to date, averaging 2,000–4,000 tokens a day
From a low of $2.50 to $9, about 4x
📁 Tier 2: Programmatic buybacks, but no burns (discounted)
SKY (formerly MakerDAO)
55% of protocol revenue goes to programmatic buybacks, but the tokens aren’t burned—just taken out of circulation. Some funds are redirected to reserves for liabilities, drawing criticism from the community
Doubled from a low of $0.05, about 2x
📁 Tier 3: Aggressive buybacks, but with a major flaw (questionable)
Aster
Claims to use 99% of fees for buybacks—more aggressive than HYPE on paper; but the tokens aren’t burned, they’re distributed to stakers, which amounts to shifting tokens from one hand to the other
No clear response in the token price
Pancake (CAKE)
Some of the fees are used for periodic buybacks according to preset rules; but CAKE itself has token emissions, so the buyback volume may not keep pace with new issuance
Whether it is net deflationary is questionable
The pattern is crystal clear from this table: every token that meets both conditions—“automatic on-chain execution” and “actual burns”—has seen a positive price response. Miss one condition and performance drops off a tier; meet neither, and there’s basically no chance.
So, back to the question we started with: has altcoin season changed? Yes—and completely. This cycle’s test isn’t about who has the best narrative or the loudest KOLs. It’s about who’s willing to put real money on the table, burn it, and let on-chain data speak for itself.
Right now, HYPE, Pump, and UNI are the benchmarks that meet all four “pillars.” SKY is one pillar short, while Aster and CAKE are two short. Compare your current holdings against this framework: keep what deserves to stay, sell what doesn’t, and don’t hesitate.