Token buybacks are booming. But are they good for crypto projects?

Crypto projects have poured roughly $640 million into token buybacks so far in 2026, but the practice is drawing scrutiny over whether it creates lasting value or just props up prices.

The figure marks a 17% jump from the same period last year and dwarfs the $366,000 spent in 2024, with Hyperliquid and Pump.fun accounting for nearly 90% of the current outlay. Proponents say buybacks create tangible demand and reduce supply, offering holders a clearer connection to protocol revenue than complex governance mechanics.

Hyperliquid has used 99% of its revenue to repurchase and burn HYPE, while Pump.fun directs 50% of its revenue to the practice, removing $446.65 million worth of PUMP from circulation. Spark takes a different route, holding over 143 million SPK in treasury for ecosystem rewards rather than burning it.

The results are not guaranteed, however. Pump.fun’s token remains 50% below its September 2025 high, and UNI has given back half its post-proposal gains. As Orest Gavryliak of 1inch notes: “If the buybacks stopped, would there still be a reason to hold the token? If the answer is no, the problem runs deeper than tokenomics.”

Recovery specialists crack $1B crypto wallet… but find just $10

Recovery specialists cracked what a client claimed was a $1 billion crypto wallet in 2021, only to find about $10 inside.

The client, Rusty, told Chris Brooks of CryptoAssetRecovery.com that he and two others had won 5,000 BTC via a court case. After flying to Georgia, Brooks and his son spent a day opening wallets from provided seed notebooks, finding roughly $10 in Bitcoin, and were never reimbursed for flights; Brooks suspects scammers had convinced Rusty of a fortune that never existed.

The case highlights that “lost crypto” often means lost access information, not vanished funds. Recovery firms typically reconstruct passwords or seed phrases, with Bruno Krauss of ReWallet noting his firm once recovered $3 million by reverse-engineering a flawed password generator.

A separate confusing category is the passphrase, where entering a different one on top of the correct seed yields another valid wallet, making funds appear lost. For genuinely destroyed keys, recovery is impossible, with Trezor analyst Lucien Bourdon stating “no recovery company can help.”

Brooks notes the firm has cracked passwords for about 63% of roughly 1,500 clients, yet around 71% of cracked wallets hold under $100. He now handles cases remotely, as possession of backup information is itself the key security risk.

BTC will hit $1M by 2030… but Arthur Hayes is buying ETH instead

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes predicts Bitcoin could reach $1 million by 2030, but he is buying Ethereum instead, citing a potential 3x to 5x surge.

Hayes told Trade Secrets that the collapse of the AI bubble, massive money printing, and potential US yield curve control are among the factors pushing Bitcoin higher. He believes the $58,000 level was likely the bottom for the cryptocurrency, which is up 22.15% over the past 30 days.

While bullish on Bitcoin, Hayes prefers Ethereum as his number one pick, arguing it is a better risk-reward than Hyperliquid. He notes Ethereum is the base layer for DeFi and is “so beaten down and so forgotten” that it is poised for a quick 3x to 5x increase.

Hayes dismissed President Donald Trump’s influence on crypto prices, saying monetary authorities are what matter. He also questioned whether the president would spend political capital on crypto legislation like the CLARITY Act, given other voter prioritie

‘White hats’ take 4000 BTC from Liquid, ETFs see best inflows of 2026: Hodler’s Digest

Nearly 4,000 Bitcoin was taken from the Liquid sidechain, with purported white-hat hackers claiming responsibility.

An unverified OP_RETURN message said “we are whitehats. contact us on chain,” while Liquid’s federation wallet balance dropped from 4,200 BTC to 207.275 BTC. Blockstream paused bridge nodes and told exchanges to pause LBTC deposits and withdrawals.

Liquid Network said the funds were withdrawn via the SideSwap PAK, but that key was not compromised. Analyst DBCrypto said the unmoved coins suggest a whitehat extraction, but the incident still raises security questions.

Elsewhere, US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted their strongest three-week inflow stretch of 2026, taking in $986.9 million last week and $3.8 billion over three weeks as Bitcoin traded near $80,000.

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