Crypto projects spent a record $638 million on token buybacks through late August 2026, led by Hyperliquid and Pump.fun. On Sept. 25, SEC staff said mature networks can run these programs without automatically triggering securities law, addressing a legal tension that has shadowed buybacks since they began.
A record year for crypto buybacks
Crypto projects spent about $638 million on token buybacks through late August 2026, according to Allium Labs data. That is already a record, up from $545 million over the same stretch of 2025.
Hyperliquid accounted for roughly $370 million and Pump.fun for about $200 million, together close to 90% of the total. The pace stands out: crypto buybacks rose from about $366,000 in 2024 to $638 million in under eight months of 2026.
What SEC staff said
On Sept. 25, staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission addressed the legal tension in a new set of crypto FAQs covering networks that are already functional. Staff said an issuer's buyback announcement for a non-security asset on such a network falls outside the "essential managerial efforts" promise at the center of the Howey test.
However, the same answer warns younger projects that pitching a buyback as a source of yield on a network that isn't yet functional can feed into an investment-contract analysis. The view rests on staff opinion, which the SEC says carries no legal force, and applies only once a network's token can be used according to its programmed utility, under the agency's March interpretation.
Money already flowing into buybacks
Pump.fun says half its revenue funds purchases and burns of its own token, with its dashboard showing roughly $500 million in annualized revenue and about $462.5 million in cumulative purchases. Hyperliquid has bought and burned roughly $1.3 billion of HYPE since launch, with more than $1 billion in annualized fees now flowing into purchases.
Uniswap switched on protocol fees in December 2025, letting outside searchers collect them only by burning UNI. Aave's program shows how quickly treasury needs can override a buyback: it acquired more than 205,000 AAVE for roughly $42 million in its first ten months. The DAO paused purchases on April 19 after the rsETH bridge incident.
A path still taking shape
A pending Regulation Crypto Assets proposal would let projects raise up to $5 million over four years under a startup exemption, or up to $75 million every 12 months under a larger one, with disclosure attached to both. A proposed Form TR would let issuers certify on EDGAR that they finished or permanently stopped their promised managerial work. Comments on the proposal close Oct. 20.
Crypto's total still trails Wall Street, where S&P 500 companies spent $1.02 trillion on repurchases in the 12 months through September 2025. Holders of these tokens still have no contractual claim on the revenue funding the purchases, and governance can pause or redirect the programs at any point.
Source: CryptoSlate
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