. The hype is real, and there's a reason for it. According to Allium's data, the scale of crypto buybacks this year has reached $638 million, far exceeding the same period last year. As of August, Hyperliquid is leading the pack with approximately $370 million in buybacks, followed closely by Pumpfun with $200 million. In other words, these two projects account for 90%, leaving the rest of the projects with less than $100 million to split. This is the crux of the issue: buybacks are a play borrowed from the stock market, and for it to work, there’s a prerequisite—you actually need to be making money. Hyperliquid earns through perpetual contract fees, and http://pump.fun takes a cut from token issuance. Both are solid cash flow businesses. Most projects don’t have this prerequisite, so what are they using to fund buybacks? Using tokens they issued themselves to swap for USDT? That’s not a buyback—that’s just moving money from one pocket to another.