$SKY-USD

Crypto projects have spent $640M on token buybacks in 2026, up from $545M in 2025, to support prices amid market challenges. Hyperliquid and pump.fun lead buyback activity, with Hyperliquid allocating 99% of revenue to repurchase its HYPE token, which has risen 70% year-over-year. Other projects like Sky Protocol and Lido have also initiated buybacks, but price impacts vary. According to Allium Labs, buybacks aim to reduce supply and signal confidence, though their effectiveness is uncertain.

The newsletter cites CoinDesk saying Coldcard, a Bitcoin-only hardware wallet, has been drained since July 30, with losses estimated at $114M, linked to a 2021 firmware bug that made seed phrases guessable. It also notes Japan’s yen purchases after 40-year lows and discusses the U.S. CLARITY Act’s Senate timing. It highlights Solana, Bitcoin levels, and tokenization firm Securitize’s institutional investments.

Sky Protocol reported gross protocol revenue of $107.35M for the quarter ended June 30, up 10.5% from $97.15M a year earlier. Net protocol revenue rose 25.1% to $40.09M, with a 37.3% net margin. sUSDS supply grew 149% to $5.52B. SKY staked totaled 17.08B tokens.

Grayscale Research, in a June 16 report, named five DeFi tokens it says have “real utility” based on fundamentals: Hyperliquid (HYPE), Aave (AAVE), Uniswap (UNI), Sky (SKY), and Maple (MAPLE). The firm argues DeFi fees and cash-flow-like models are increasingly driving token value. It cited nearly $25 billion in cumulative DeFi fees since 2023 and said AAVE was undervalued near $75.