A forecast said that if a structure spreads in which protocol revenue is directly tied to token buybacks and burns, cryptocurrency values could rise by at least twofold.

On Aug. 13 (local time), blockchain outlet Cointelegraph reported that Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan (맷 호건) said the cryptocurrency market excluding bitcoin is being reshaped around network revenue, but investors have not yet fully reflected the change.

A token buyback is a method in which a protocol uses revenue earned from fees and other sources to repurchase its own tokens in the market. The tokens bought can be held or used for other purposes, but if this leads to a permanent removal through a "burn", the number of tokens available for circulation declines. Assuming demand remains, a supply reduction can act as a factor lifting token value, similar to the effect of listed companies buying back and retiring their own shares with profits.

Hougan cited Hyperliquid, Uniswap, Aave, Pump.fun and Lyra, saying models that repurchase tokens with fees or remove them from circulation are already working. He said such revenue-capture mechanisms are expected to spread across DeFi applications and layer-1 networks over the next 12 to 24 months.

The change could also affect how tokens are valued. Hougan said that if the link between protocol revenue and token value strengthens, investors could apply more traditional valuation metrics. He also noted limits, saying token holders do not have a legal claim on cash flows like shareholders, and community-set tokenomics can also change.

The first real-world example cited was Hyperliquid. The decentralised exchange earned more than $800 million in revenue last year and is using about 99 percent of that for HYPE buybacks and burns. Hyperliquid disclosed on Aug. 6 that its second-quarter revenue was $169 million and said it put $141 million of that into HYPE buybacks.

Uniswap was also presented as a case that strengthened the link between tokens and revenue. After approval of a restructuring called "UNIfication" on Dec. 22, 2025, Uniswap introduced a structure that uses protocol fees to fund UNI burns. The structure links higher protocol activity to a reduction in UNI supply.

Aave is also running a buyback programme. Aave DAO bought more than 205,000 AAVE over the first 10 months. Aave founder Stani Kulechov (스테니 쿨레초프) said on June 25 that he is designing an automatic buyback mechanism that operates without discretionary intervention, and said 100 percent of revenue from the Aave protocol and the GHO stablecoin goes to the AAVE token. He added that the structure was already set under a proposal titled "Aave wins".

A shift in the U.S. regulatory environment was pointed to as a market backdrop. Hougan said projects had avoided revenue-sharing structures due to concerns about securities laws, but recent U.S. regulatory direction has turned more relaxed, making such designs possible. He has also mentioned on Aug. 5 that cryptocurrency market expansion could continue on regulatory guidelines alone.

The trend is read as a signal that it is changing the investment thesis for cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin. If a structure takes hold in which higher network usage increases protocol revenue and that revenue feeds back into token buybacks and burns, token prices could respond more sensitively to cash-generating power than to simple expectations. Still, token-holder rights and the possibility of tokenomics changes remain key variables, and how far any revaluation goes is expected to depend on each project’s design and execution.