Written by: WallStreetBets
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
2026 was a year in which revenue-generating crypto projects flourished.
Year to date, we have seen combined revenue across protocols reach $11.68 billion. If November and December can perform similarly to October, that figure should reach about $13.9 billion by year-end, less than $1 billion short of 2025, even though 2025's market environment was far better.
Annual revenue of crypto protocols
What we are seeing is a fundamentals-driven trend that is building momentum even as the broader market weakens. Whenever I see this kind of divergence, I want to understand what is driving it and, more importantly, where the investment opportunities are.
In this article, I will break down my findings, including:
- Why I believe crypto's "revenue narrative" is still early
- How to evaluate revenue-generating businesses and identify attractive token opportunities
- Why major teams from Hyperliquid to World Liberty Financial are embracing buybacks
- Where I am looking for the next wave of outperforming assets
The basic logic of the revenue narrative
Crypto never lacks investment narratives; the problem is that most narratives do not last long.
We have seen investors chase NFTs, the metaverse, SocialFi, and one "public chain season" after another. Money floods in, valuations soar, but the music always stops. When the music stops, investors are left holding massive losses.
These stories share one thing in common: market performance is driven more by narrative and speculation, with too little weight given to traditional business fundamentals.
But over the past few years, some changes have taken place in the industry that are fundamentally changing how investors allocate capital.
First, we have a better understanding of "where blockchain creates real economic value and product advantages." After years of experimentation, some product categories have established clear product-market fit, and breakthrough sectors such as prediction markets and tokenization have even emerged from the industry bubble.
I also see more institutional capital flowing into this space through paths closer to traditional finance, such as DeFi vaults, rather than coming only for speculation; there are more suits than hoodies at crypto conferences; and regulatory progress in Washington has also made substantive advances.
Overall, the industry has matured considerably. As a result, the main capital allocators shaping the crypto market are increasingly moving away from speculative, high-risk bets and toward supporting teams that are closer to traditional business fundamentals. This shift has important implications for future investment trends.
When the institutional investors and major capital allocators driving the market begin to prioritize sustainable business models, the investment narratives they drive will increasingly reflect the same priorities. This also changes the lifespan of narratives: when an investment trend is driven by fundamentals, it is better able to sustain investor interest across market cycles, especially when the underlying business continues to grow beyond the token's short-term price.
If we are heading into a new crypto bull market, this is where I want my portfolio allocation to be: behind long-term trends supported by durable demand and able to compound in value over time.
This is also why I first focused on the privacy sector and now focus on the "revenue narrative."
The revenue narrative is an investment trend centered on a growing class of crypto businesses. They have an existing customer base, sustainable revenue, and the ability to translate business success into real value meaningful to token holders. As the industry matures and investors place increasing importance on business fundamentals, the thesis is that these companies are poised to become some of the biggest winners in the next bull market.
What makes this opportunity particularly interesting is its breadth: unlike other narratives concentrated around specific technologies and applications, revenue creation spans every sector of the crypto market.
At first glance, the investment approach seems straightforward: apply the same fundamental analysis investors have used for decades to evaluate successful businesses. But in an industry still catching up to these standards, I believe there is additional opportunity for investors willing to look beyond traditional financial metrics.
The advantage is this: a successful crypto business does not necessarily mean its token is a successful investment.
This is because, unlike equity, most crypto tokens do not give holders legal ownership of the underlying business or its profits. Therefore, a protocol can generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and that economic value may not flow to the token investors hold.
So finding the best money-making businesses is only half the battle.
The real opportunity lies in finding businesses that can both sustain commercial success and have effective mechanisms to translate that growth into value for token holders.
This is where token buybacks come in:
- In traditional stock markets, listed companies use excess cash to repurchase shares, reducing the number of shares outstanding and increasing the ownership percentage of remaining shareholders.
- Crypto involves different economic and regulatory considerations. Unlike shareholders, most token holders have no legal ownership of the business behind their tokens; and explicitly tying token holder returns to the team's management efforts may raise securities law issues.
- As a result, buybacks have become a popular mechanism for establishing a more direct relationship between "business success" and "token value."
The basic concept of buybacks is similar to traditional share repurchases. A protocol can use a portion of its revenue to buy tokens on the open market, then burn, lock, or deposit them into a treasury.
But despite the similarity to traditional finance, buybacks have been one of crypto's most controversial topics over the past two years. Projects have spent hundreds of millions of dollars repurchasing tokens, yet market results have often been disappointing, leading many investors to doubt whether the strategy works at all.
My view is different.
At this stage, I believe the evidence we have accumulated is enough for us to move beyond the debate over "whether buybacks work" and toward a clearer understanding of when, why, and under what conditions buybacks actually work.
And that is exactly what I want to explain clearly.
The great debate about crypto buybacks
Buyback strategies really took off in 2025.
That year, 28 major crypto projects collectively spent more than $1.4 billion repurchasing their own tokens. However, only 3 token buyback programs that year outperformed Bitcoin during their buyback windows (AAVE, HYPE, SKY), while many projects saw their token valuations fall sharply. Needless to say, 2025 led many projects to discover that spending millions of dollars repurchasing tokens does not necessarily translate into better market performance.
Many investors looked at the disappointing results of 2025 buyback programs, especially the huge gap between "money spent" and "token performance," and concluded that the strategy simply does not work.
I believe this conclusion ignores important context.
Rather than judging buybacks solely by their impact on token prices, I care more about the conditions under which they are executed and what separates effective from ineffective buyback strategies. On that basis, I believe we can first establish four clear criteria for a "good buyback program":
- Revenue-backed: Buybacks are funded by real business revenue, not existing treasury reserves or other unsustainable capital sources.
- Established product-market fit: The underlying business has demonstrated sufficient demand and repeatable revenue to support long-term buybacks.
- Transparent execution: Token holders can independently verify how the buyback mechanism works, including the source of funds, the execution process, and the destination of the repurchased tokens.
- Sustainable capital allocation: Funding buybacks does not impair the company's ability to reinvest in growth, maintain financial stability, or seize higher-return opportunities.
Beyond these fundamental criteria, several factors affect the effectiveness of buyback programs and are worth considering when evaluating projects:
1) Market Environment
Jupiter is probably the most frequently cited case of "buybacks failing to deliver the expected market performance."
In February 2025, the platform began using 50% of on-chain protocol revenue to buy back JUP. By January 2026, the team had spent over $70 million repurchasing tokens, yet JUP continued to decline significantly.
This disappointing performance prompted Jupiter co-founder Siong Ong to speak out and redirect funds toward business growth. The program ultimately continued.
Criticism of Jupiter's buybacks has mostly centered on their failure to support the JUP price, raising the question of whether the team would have been better off spending that money on growing the business.
But I think it's more important to look at the market conditions under which these buybacks occurred.
January 2025 was the peak for many assets in the previous Solana ecosystem cycle. Since then, SOL has fallen from a high of $294 to $96. Around the same period, tokens associated with major Solana protocols such as Sanctum, Kamino, and Jito all fell by more than 80%, while well-known meme coins like Fartcoin and WIF dropped by over 90%.
In other words, Jupiter spent over $70 million buying back JUP during a period when the entire Solana ecosystem was experiencing extreme selling pressure. The lesson: Buybacks can create substantial demand for a token, but even large-scale buying may struggle to offset a prolonged, market-wide downturn.
Sometimes, no matter how fast you row, you can't beat the tide.
2) Token Issuance
Another important consideration is how much new token supply entering circulation compares to the amount being bought back.
A protocol can spend tens of millions of dollars on buybacks, but if token unlocks, emissions, and other distributions bring in more supply than the buybacks absorb, the effect will be drowned out.
Bill Hsu's research shows a negative correlation between token supply growth and relative market performance. Ultimately, what matters is not how much the team spent on buybacks, but whether those purchases genuinely improved the token's supply-demand dynamics.
Token supply changes vs. excess returns relative to Bitcoin for ten major crypto buyback programs in 2025. Source: Bill Hsu
3) The Buyback Mechanism Itself
Many crypto protocols commit a fixed percentage of revenue to automatic buybacks regardless of token valuation. While this creates predictable demand and demonstrates a clear commitment to token holders, it may not be the most efficient way to allocate capital.
It's also not how traditional stock markets do it.
For example, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has historically repurchased shares while maintaining sufficient liquidity. The logic: Buy back shares when they are undervalued, and preserve capital when valuations are high or better investment opportunities exist.
I understand the appeal of "programmatic buybacks" in crypto, especially when many tokens—particularly those backed by strong revenue businesses—have looked cheap for quite a while due to a prolonged market downturn.
But as market conditions improve and valuations expand, I expect more teams to shift toward discretionary buybacks that take into account token price, growth opportunities, and broader capital allocation priorities.
Ultimately, the goal should be to maximize long-term value for token holders, not simply to maximize buyback spending. As an investor, your job is to judge which teams' approaches are most effective.
Fortunately, we now have an increasing amount of market data to assess which buyback approaches actually work. And 2026's performance provides strong evidence for "taking revenue-backed buybacks seriously."
2026 Buyback Performance
Crypto buybacks had another stunning year this year.
Projects have spent over $900 million on token buybacks and related burn mechanisms, with Hyperliquid and Pump.fun accounting for the vast majority. Uniswap, Jupiter, and Sky are also worth noting.
Hyperliquid's buyback tokens are in profit
Most importantly, many of the tokens associated with these programs delivered outstanding returns this year.
Take the top 30 protocols by revenue over the past 30 days: nearly half (14 projects) have no publicly tradable native token, and of the remaining 16 projects with investable tokens, 12 have active buyback programs:
- 9 tokens with positive year-to-date returns
- 3 with negative year-to-date returns
- Average year-to-date return +62.2%, median +32.6%
By comparison, 4 projects without active buyback programs:
- 1 with positive year-to-date returns
- 3 with negative returns
- Average year-to-date return −31.6%, median −31.5%
The average year-to-date performance gap between the two groups reached 93.8 percentage points.
Even more impressive is that these tokens achieved their performance against the backdrop of the total crypto market cap declining about 19% during the year.
With results like these, I'm not surprised when teams with strong revenue announce they're embracing buybacks. For example, World Liberty Financial just launched its own WLFI buyback program last week, and I expect more teams to follow in the first quarter of next year.
Equally important is comparing this year's buyback performance with other value distribution strategies — especially distributing revenue directly to token holders.
In September, DeFiLlama research compared the performance of "tokens with buyback programs" versus "tokens that distribute revenue directly to holders."
The conclusion: year-to-date, tokens with buyback mechanisms had a median return of 19.7%, versus 11.1% for tokens using direct revenue distribution.
And when the researchers market-cap-weighted these returns, the gap widened significantly: 190% for buyback tokens versus 29% for direct-distribution tokens.
Buyback tokens on average outperform direct-distribution tokens
We're also seeing positive changes in the share of protocol revenue flowing back to token holders.
The same research shows that as of September 2026, crypto protocols had monthly revenue exceeding $1 billion for 23 consecutive months. Two years ago, about 5% of that flowed to token holders; by September, that share had tripled to 15%, reflecting the growing adoption of revenue distribution mechanisms.
So, to summarize the lessons of 2026:
- Teams with buybacks broadly crushed it in the public markets
- Buybacks are outperforming other revenue distribution models
- An increasing share of crypto business revenue is being distributed to tokens, indicating the trend will continue
What I'm Watching
For me, the opportunity ahead lies in identifying crypto businesses that "do buybacks the right way," especially companies in sectors with long-term growth potential.
Let's look at a few directions worth exploring.
1) Where the money flows
Our analysis of the 30 highest-revenue crypto protocols identified 9 projects that have both active buybacks and positive year-to-date token returns.
If these businesses can deliver strong performance under adverse market conditions, I think there's strong reason to imagine what they could achieve when a broad bull market returns.
Beyond individual protocols, I think it's equally important to examine where revenue generation is happening across the broader crypto industry. These sectors are most likely to have the conditions for buyback programs to succeed.
In 2025, the crypto industry is estimated to have generated $86.4 billion in revenue; by 2030, that figure is projected to reach $305 billion.
Going forward, the fastest-growing segments are expected to be stablecoins and RWA lending: research forecasts annual revenue of $60 billion and $15 billion respectively for these two by 2030. These are the two sectors I'll be watching closely.
2) World Liberty Financial
Until now, investors' opportunities to directly capture the economic upside of the stablecoin revolution have been relatively limited. I've always believed that stablecoins are one of crypto's strongest product-market fit cases, with the potential to fundamentally reshape global finance.
Companies and protocols like Tether, Circle, World Liberty Financial, and Ethena have proven that stablecoins are not just a use case for blockchain technology, but a foundation for building billion-dollar businesses. Yet despite explosive growth, investors' opportunities to directly participate in the value they create remain quite limited.
Look at the current landscape: Tether remains private; Circle issued stock but shares a significant portion of revenue with distribution partners; Coinbase captures some of USDC's economics, but its stock represents a broader business. Meanwhile, holding XRP or PayPal stock does not give direct exposure to the revenue generated by RLUSD or PYUSD.
That's what makes World Liberty Financial's newly launched buyback program stand out to me.
By using a portion of the revenue related to USD1 reserves (over $150 million per year) for its buyback program, World Liberty Financial is establishing a more direct link between the economic success of the stablecoin business and demand for the WLFI token, giving token holders a chance to benefit as USD1 adoption grows.
As USD1 circulation expands, reserve revenue will grow accordingly, creating more resources for buybacks. In my view, this is the most direct attempt to date to connect "stablecoin issuer economics" with "publicly tradable tokens."
3) Venice
The privacy-focused AI platform AskVenice recently surpassed 4 million users and over $100 million in annualized revenue. On November 9, the company also executed a buyback, removing approximately $458,000 worth of tokens from circulation.
At the same time, automatic burns funded by new subscriptions and API credit purchases grew 40% month-over-month in October. In October, Venice burned a total of approximately $1.07 million worth of VVV, and November is expected to set a new record at $1.14 million.
What makes Venice particularly interesting to me is this: very few crypto-related businesses have achieved this level of commercial success outside the industry.
Other investors took notice this year as well. Their support, combined with Venice's own buybacks, has driven VVV's price up more than 1,200% this year.
4) Bittensor
The examples so far have shown how buybacks can benefit a single project, while Bittensor shows what happens when this strategy is adopted across an entire ecosystem. In the crypto industry, I haven't seen the same obsession with buybacks anywhere else.
Bittensor operates through a network of "subnets," which you can think of as independent tech startups competing for TAO token emissions. The market demand for each subnet's own alpha token (the startup's own native cryptocurrency) plays an important role in determining how emissions are allocated, so token performance can directly affect whether a team survives.
As a result, buybacks, burns, and emissions management have become central to subnet strategy. This ecosystem has become an ongoing tokenomics experiment; I think any team considering buybacks, whether on Bittensor or not, is worth studying.
According to Subconnect data, as of August 2026, 14 of the 24 subnets with external revenue had already used revenue to fund alpha token buybacks. These 24 subnets have a combined estimated annualized revenue of $28 million to $35 million.
A more interesting recent example comes from Targon, currently the third-largest subnet in Bittensor by market cap.
On October 27, Targon reported burning approximately $2.1 million worth of alpha tokens (SN4), of which about $445,000 came from new buybacks; this activity was funded by revenue from its AI compute business.
Targon SN4 price trend
Within seven hours of the announcement, SN4 rose more than 13% on the weekly chart. Even amid a broader market decline, the token was still about 3% higher than its pre-announcement price as of writing.
What stands out to me in this case, and many others like it, is how real-time the Bittensor subnet market's reaction to buyback-related developments can be. Investors pay close attention to how teams manage emissions, generate revenue, and support token demand.
I think this provides an early sample of how the broader crypto market may evolve as buybacks become more widespread.
5) Robinhood Chain
Robinhood Chain is another ecosystem worth watching for buyback innovation, especially in scenarios involving tokenized RWAs.
longdotxyz is leading some of these experiments. In September, the platform launched LONG 500, a mechanism designed to connect community tokens with tokenized stocks through a shared economic model.
Here's how it works:
- 5% of the stock token fees generated by new trading pairs flow into the AI community treasury, accumulating tokenized stocks in a shared reserve.
- Another 5% is used to buy back and burn the community token paired with each stock, and anyone can trigger execution.
What's interesting about this approach is that LONG combines token buybacks with the accumulation of actual financial assets. As more stock communities launch and generate trading activity, this system can simultaneously reduce the supply of participating community tokens, support liquidity, and grow the ecosystem's asset reserves.
This is a more sophisticated method of value accumulation than simply allocating protocol revenue to buy back native tokens; it creates a model in which growth in individual markets can feed back into the broader ecosystem.
In the future, I suspect we'll see far more experiments like this on Robinhood Chain than we do now.
What Happens in a Real Bull Market?
We've spent years watching the crypto market reward narratives, speculation, and promises of future adoption. Now, the revenue narrative is in full swing, and what we see is an industry with enough commercial activity and financial performance to support a more fundamentally driven investment landscape.
Despite relatively unfavorable market conditions, several leading revenue-generating crypto protocols have still delivered impressive token returns, expanded their user bases, and continued to generate substantial revenue.
Now, imagine what happens when these conditions change.
For these businesses, increased adoption and market activity translate directly into more revenue. And when a substantial portion of that revenue funds token buybacks, the resulting demand can grow alongside the protocol itself. Add improving market sentiment and capital flowing back in, and the potential for excess returns becomes quite attractive.
In that scenario, buybacks are no longer just helping teams stay afloat in a harsh environment; they're more like pouring gasoline on an already roaring fire. Moreover, if the forecast that the crypto industry will reach hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue by 2030 comes true, it also means there is still enormous economic value waiting to be created.
That's why I believe the crypto protocol "revenue narrative" has only just begun.
