Jupiter’s token buyback plan has reopened an old debate in crypto: do buybacks actually work when new tokens keep flooding the market?
In Jupiter’s case, the answer so far looks complicated.
In 2025, the protocol used about half of its fee revenue to buy back JUP tokens, spending more than $70 million. On paper, that sounds huge. Jupiter remained one of the most active DeFi platforms on Solana, processing billions of dollars in volume.
But the price told a different story.
By early January 2026, JUP was trading around $0.20 to $0.22, down nearly 89% from its peak. The problem wasn’t usage or demand. It was supply.
Since launch, JUP’s circulating supply has grown by roughly 150%, while buybacks only absorbed a small portion of the new tokens entering the market. Unlocks kept coming on a fixed schedule, creating steady sell pressure no matter how well the protocol performed.
Through June 2026, about 53 million JUP unlock every month. In that environment, buybacks act more like a short-term cushion than real long-term support.
Jupiter co-founder Siong Ong acknowledged this and said continuing aggressive buybacks may not be efficient. Instead, he suggested shifting capital toward growth incentives rather than trying to fight constant supply increases.
Why Solana’s co-founder thinks buybacks fall short
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko summed it up simply. When token emissions are high, short-term buybacks don’t change how sellers think. Tokens that unlock today get sold at today’s price, not at some future value hinted at by buybacks.
Yakovenko’s alternative focuses on time, not speed.
Instead of immediate repurchases, protocols could accumulate profits and deploy them later, or offer staking programs with longer lockups. That way, unlocks are priced against a future environment, not just current spot demand.
It also encourages holders to think long-term, similar to how companies build balance sheets in traditional finance.
The Jupiter community is split. Some believe buybacks are still important for discipline and alignment. Others agree that when supply growth is aggressive, buybacks lose their impact.
Jupiter has already adjusted its strategy. The protocol reduced its planned 2026 airdrop from 700 million to 200 million JUP, signaling a shift toward tighter supply control.
The takeaway is becoming hard to ignore: when unlocks dominate a token’s economics, buybacks alone rarely change the outcome.
