13 of 15 Cryptos That Buy Back Their Own Tokens Beat Bitcoin This Year. Is That the Secret Behind Hyperliquid’s 200% Gain?

A study by DWF Labs, released on November 9, 2026, found that 13 of 15 cryptocurrencies with buyback or similar value-return programs have outperformed Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) so far this year. Hyperliquid (CRYPTO:HYPE) had gained more than 200% as of October 27, and Pump.fun (CRYPTO:PUMP) more than 120%. In contrast, Bitcoin is down 14.5% year to date.

However, HYPE trades at $76, down 9.2% over the past week and 22.2% below its all-time high of $98 from September 23, even though Hyperliquid sends 95% to 99% of its revenue into buying HYPE. Still, the token remains up 199.7% from $25 at the end of 2025.

So does the Hyperliquid buyback account for those gains, or are these tokens rising because they belong to platforms that earned heavy fees in a busy trading year?

DWF Labs Finds Buyback Tokens Outperform Bitcoin in 2026

DWF Labs compared the year-to-date price changes of 15 tokens with active or announced value-return mechanisms against Bitcoin’s. A value-return mechanism returns a project’s revenue to token holders, most often by buying tokens on the market. Traders often read that as a built-in buyer, which can help push a token’s price higher by shrinking its circulating supply.

In a traditional stock buyback, a company repurchases its shares, which raises each remaining shareholder’s stake in future profits, backed by a legal claim. Hyperliquid’s approach runs through its Assistance Fund, a protocol-controlled wallet that uses trading fees to buy HYPE every day.

However, HYPE holders have no legal claim on Hyperliquid’s fees, so the buyback works only through supply and demand. As the fund buys tokens, it takes them out of circulation. Pump.fun, which lets users create and trade new memecoins, runs a smaller version, directing about 50% of its revenue toward buybacks.

Hyperliquid’s Revenue Fuels Buybacks and Prices Together

Only projects with spare revenue can fund buybacks, so buyback tokens mostly belong to businesses that already earn money. Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange focused on perpetual futures, contracts that track a coin’s price with no expiry date. Pump.fun earns fees whenever users launch and trade new tokens.

Both platforms collect more when trading spikes, and heavy trading tends to arrive alongside price increases. So revenue, buybacks, and token prices climb together, and the DWF figures can’t show which one drives the others.

Hyperliquid’s buyback is also modest next to its market cap. So far, Hyperliquid has repurchased over $1.26 billion of HYPE, only about 6.9% of its $18.3 billion market cap. In the past week alone, however, HYPE lost about $1.85 billion in market value, more than the total spent on buybacks.

Pump.fun shows a similar pattern. PUMP is up 92.1% year to date, down from the more than 120% gain DWF reported, and it has fallen 33% over the past 30 days, even with half its revenue still going to buybacks. Chainlink (CRYPTO:LINK) faced the same problem in October, when its revenue-backed reserve kept buying even as LINK’s price fell.

ETF Flows and Binance Supply Could Decide HYPE’s Next Move

Flows much larger than the buyback now set HYPE’s price. On November 6, U.S. Hyperliquid ETFs reported net outflows of $8 million, meaning investors pulled out more cash than they put in, so the funds needed less HYPE. Binance has also resumed HYPE withdrawals, letting users move tokens to personal wallets, stake them, or sell them on other exchanges.

Much of that buying and selling is hard to see. Hyperliquid’s buybacks are public on its blockchain, but most trading happens inside exchange order books like Binance’s and never reaches the chain. So the buyback figures track only one market participant.

New demand could come from more usage. Elysium, a Layer 2 network built on top of Hyperliquid, went live on November 9 and uses HYPE to pay transaction fees. Hyperliquid’s futures market earned $2.8 million in fees over 24 hours on November 7, which helps fund the buyback, and Ripple’s plans to connect Wall Street to Hyperliquid’s markets could add trading volume too.

HYPE trades below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA) of $81 and its 50-day SMA of $85, suggesting sellers control the short-term trend. However, it remains above its 200-day SMA of $68, so the longer-term uptrend is still intact.

Is the Hyperliquid Buyback the Key to HYPE’s Rise?

Buybacks played a role, but most of Hyperliquid’s gain came from its revenue. DWF’s data shows that revenue-earning tokens with buybacks outperformed Bitcoin in 2026, but it can’t prove the buybacks caused the gains, because a project funds buybacks only after it earns revenue. A fairer test would compare revenue-earning tokens with and without buybacks, and a count of 13 out of 15 can’t do that.

Two indicators could test the buyback theory. If U.S. Hyperliquid ETFs return to steady net inflows while daily fees stay near $2.8 million, outside money would be backing the buyback, and HYPE could regain its 20-day SMA of $81. If HYPE instead closes below its 200-day SMA of $68, that would show that $1.26 billion in buying can’t sustain the uptrend, and that HYPE’s 200% gain came mainly from the trading boom.

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